“This is a step in the right direction towards more people in St Albans being vaccinated at a location in the city, instead of being redirected to a hub miles away.”
The Government’s minister for vaccine deployment has pledged to monitor the supply to St Albans after Daisy Cooper MP secured a meeting with him and local GPs running the Batchwood Hall vaccination centre.
Nadhim Zahawi, the Minister in charge of the rollout, undertook to monitor vaccine supplies to Batchwood Hall in St Albans after GPs report a slump to one-third of capacity.
He also agreed to nominate Batchwood Hall as a possible pilot site to trial a new booking system designed to break down silos between GP-led centres and NHS vaccination hubs.
Daisy Cooper MP secured the virtual meeting with the minister, along with Dr Helen McAndrew and Dr Mike Walton, joint clinical leads at Batchwood Hall.
Last month, the Batchwood GP-led service, was commended by Matt Hancock, the health secretary, for being one of the best-performing vaccination sites in the country. But shortly after supply dwindled, forcing it to fall behind other areas.
The clinical team raised concerns that the centre, which serves nine St Albans GP practices1 and a population of about 110,000 people, was only receiving one-third of the doses appropriate for its size.
They told the minister they were aware that other GP-led groups of a similar size were receiving much larger supplies, but they had not received a satisfactory reason why or a correction of the deficit.
They reported that St Albans residents were having to attend mass vaccination sites against their wishes because of the lack of supplies to Batchwood, and attempts to obtain adequate amounts or arrange for distribution to be re-routed from NHS mass vaccination centres or pharmacies had proved impossible.
The GPs emphasised that patients needed to receive their first and second jabs at the same venue. This was to ensure the right amount and type of vaccine was sent to the right location at the right time to comply with the 12-week dosing schedule and the correct roll-out of a second dose to each individual.
They also warned that the NHS’s national booking system was allowing patients to arrange their second jab at an alternative centre, causing logistical chaos and wasting valuable clinical and administrative time chasing patients who had not responded to invites for their second dose, only to find they’d received an appointment elsewhere.
Nadhim Zahawi then disclosed that plans are being made to streamline the dual booking systems, where currently mass vaccination centres use the NHS national booking system and GP services, access their own patient records. GP-led centres will be encouraged to migrate to the NHS system.
While the Batchwood Hall team welcomed the move, they were concerned they would be unable to monitor trends or retrieve useful information about their patients. They said they favoured a hybrid model instead, and volunteered Batchwood to be part of a national trial , which the minister agreed to support.
Dr Mike Walton said: “We understand that second dose supply has been secured and this is comforting for those awaiting their second vaccine, and that first dose supply will be reduced across the UK in April. But we’d welcome an investigation into why the supply of vaccine to our GP group has not reflected our size.
“We could definitely benefit from a more streamlined system that reduces the duplication of work and public confusion, and most importantly one that listens to local experts about how best to ensure that as many people as possible receive the life-saving vaccine in the safest and most efficient way.
“This is not always through the provision of additional sites but using established and popular sites to their capacity.”
Daisy Cooper MP said: “Everyone working at the Batchwood centre has done a fantastic job, despite frustrations with supply and logistics.
“After weeks of pursuing this issue, I was pleased to secure a meeting with the Minister so he could hear directly from the GPs working on the frontline of the vaccination effort.
“This is a step in the right direction towards more people in St Albans being vaccinated at a location in the city, instead of being redirected to a hub miles away.”