Vaccine delays and cancellations could cause 'insurmountable' barriers for elderly patients, doctors say

Supplies of the vaccine have been irregular due to upgrade work at Pfizer’s Belgium factory, which will enable it to step up production from 1.5 billion vaccines in 2021 to 2 billion.

These delays will make it more difficult for Britain to meet its target to vaccinate the top priority groups by mid-February but pharma bosses maintained that there would be no drop in the number of vaccines delivered by the end of March.

A Doncaster doctor said the irregularity of the deliveries of the doses meant appointments were getting cancelled and rescheduled, which was putting too many barriers in place for patients, some of whom were already sceptical about the vaccine.

Dr Dean Eggitt, a Doncaster GP and chief executive officer of the borough's Local Medical Committee said he thought some patients would lose trust in the vaccine or consider it too much of a hassle because their appointments were being rescheduled.

He said: “It probably will affect takeup. Some patients are already influenced by conspiracy theories or fears about safety, so for those people who are not sure they believe in the vaccine, this could be putting too many barriers in place.

“For those who are sat on the fence, it could be insurmountable. It’s quite a lot of effort for some people already if they have to travel to get the vaccine, and these additional hurdles could mean lots of people decide against getting it.”

On top of this, Dr Geetha Chandrasekaran, a GP in Halifax, said cancelling appointments can cause patients to lose momentum with the process.

She said: “Cancelling their appointments and not being able to give them a new appointment can be quite confusing for some patients.”

It can then be difficult to re-book them when the practice knows they are getting the vaccine.

“Sometimes patients might need to coordinate with relatives to take them to the appointment, which can be hard to do at short notice.”

Dr Richard Vautrey, a GP in Leeds and chair of the British Medical Association's GP committee, said the uncertainty of when the vaccines would be delivered to GP practices was “frustrating” as mass vaccination centres did not appear to have the same problems.

“They appear to be getting regular supplies to enable them to vaccinate every day, whereas practice supplies are more variable so can only plan clinics at the last minute.

“We need more consistency of supply to be able to plan this better for our patients and enable them to receive their vaccine locally rather than having to travel some distance for it.”

He added that most patients were keen to get it as soon as possible.

Doctors were keen to stress that patients should not be calling their GPs to ask when they are due to get the vaccine as these calls clog the phone line for urgent issues and they will be contacted when an appointment is available.

While Mr Johnson said it would be difficult to meet targets, his official spokesman said the prime minister stood by plans.

He said: "We are working with manufacturing companies to help them rapidly increase the number of doses they are making, but as you would expect the number of vaccines that we can deliver on individual days may fluctuate. But the important point is we will make sure that we jab the top four groups by mid February.

“You’ve had representatives from the NHS say they are ready and can deliver more vaccine if we are able to increase the supply. That is exactly what we are doing over the course of this month and into next month.”

Supplies are expected to return to normal next week. A Pfizer spokesperson said: “We can confirm the overall projected volumes of delivery to the UK remain the same for quarter one (January to March).

“We continue to liaise with the UK Government and the Vaccines Taskforce to work through the short-term impact of these changes to our January deliveries and support the goals of the UK COVID-19 vaccination programme.”

This comes as a record number of people are known to have died from Covid-19 in the last 24 hours.

A total of 1,820 people died within 28 days of testing positive for the infection.

The UK's chief scientific adviser has said vaccines are not doing enough "heavy lifting" at the moment and case rates need to drop further before the Government can think of easing restrictions.

Sir Patrick Vallance said the country still has a long way to go in battling coronavirus - describing scenes in some hospitals as a "war zone" - but he added there is "light at the end of the tunnel".

Increased vaccination efforts in North Yorkshire mean every care home resident is on track to be vaccinated by the weekend.

Amanda Bloor, accountable officer for North Yorkshire CCG, said: “I am really delighted that we continue to make good progress with the vaccination programme.

“Thanks to the tremendous efforts of all our colleagues delivering the vaccination programme, we are on course to deliver vaccinations to all care home residents and staff by the end of this week where it’s safe to do so.”

A Sheffield councillor has said nearly half the city’s population could be vaccinated within the next 10 weeks.

Lib Dem councillor Shaffaq Mohammed said: “Sheffield residents are eager and willing to roll up their sleeves to get the Covid vaccine. So much so that an estimated 45,000 people have already received the vaccine in Sheffield.

“However, both locally and nationally, there has been a slowdown in the number of people being vaccinated. A number of local volunteers have raised concerns about the supply of the vaccine. They have said that there have been issues with distribution. As a result, centres have not been able to plan for or operate at 100% capacity. This means fewer people in Sheffield are being protected than potentially could be.

“Local health professionals and community volunteers have done a fantastic job of organising the vaccination hubs at very short notice. It is totally unacceptable that our NHS staff could potentially be held back by unpredictable supplies from the Government. Urgent action needs to be taken to ensure the delivery of vaccines to Sheffield."