Rural rollout is key to vaccine success – The Yorkshire Post says

Quite the opposite. This very issue takes on added importance if provision of this lifesaving vaccine is to be based on the clinical need of recipients rather than geography.

It is too important to be left to chance in another NHS postcode lottery – hence this week’s call by The Yorkshire Post and sister papers for greater use to be made of 11,000 local pharmacies.

And it is why this newspaper was not reassured by Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s response in Parliament to Colne Valley MP Jason McCartney about the rural rollout of vaccines.

For, while the Minister’s remit is an unenviable one, Mr Hancock cannot escape the fact that many elderly and vulnerable people – individuals still living in fear of the virus after a year – are being expected to travel in excess of 10 miles to get jabs.

There’s clearly much more to do to ensure “everyone will live within 10 miles of a vaccination centre by the end of January” – the stated aim of the Government’s new strategy – and the proposed facility at the John Smith’s Stadium in Huddersfield will help.

But it will not necessarily assist those living in the more isolated Pennine communities. And, just like all those living in Yorkshre’s rural heartlands, Mr Hancock was unconvincing when he said that “everybody will be able to get a jab locally” and that those asked to travel to regional hubs could, if they so wish, be vaccinated by their local GP surgery instead – is the appointments process sufficiently robust?

For, despite repeated calls by this newspaper for mobile vaccination units to be established and deployed into the community as a priority, the Government remains bafflingly silent on the proposition. Surely it is not only this newspaper that can see that the sooner the most vulnerable, isolated and often immobile among us can be vaccinated, the more lives will be saved and the more capacity in the NHS can be protected.

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