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The National GP Committee is calling for an urgent investigation into the mismanagement of this year’s vaccination campaign, and what can be done to prevent such disruption from happening again.
It claims the programme has caused widespread confusion among the profession, and continues to seriously impact upon patient safety. Vaccinations were due to commence in September, but were then delayed until October threatening to cause mass disruption necessitating many hundreds of thousands of appointments to be rearranged to accommodate the government’s new timetable.
The government then announced that practices had to deliver Covid vaccines before the end of October, or face being paid a significantly reduced fee per jab after that date.
Reduction of Covid vaccine fee will not be financially viable for practices to continue
The GP Committee said it was clear that the direction for this year’s vaccination programme was not properly thought through, and a thorough explanation is now needed.
Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chair of GPC England at the BMA, said: “The last few weeks have been incredibly challenging for GPs, practice managers and their teams who, on top of managing rising patient demand, have been trying to keep up with conflicting instructions from NHS England about this year’s flu and Covid vaccination programme.
“The campaign is a huge logistical operation, which practices plan many months in advance, so to throw plans into disarray with days to go, creating unnecessary additional workload and patient concern was incredibly frustrating – made all the worse by a refusal to offer the right financial support modelled as cost effective by the Government’s own Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisations.
“While practices have been able to keep their original vaccine clinics in place, the reduction of the fee for the Covid jab from November onwards means that it won’t be financially viable for practices to continue, potentially putting vulnerable patients at risk. With a new variant now circulating, the profession needs this addressed as a matter of urgency.”