Why GPs and pharmacies should lead vaccine rollout – Yorkshire Post Letters

From: Lord Scriven, Lib Dem peer, Sheffield.
Richard Poskitt is vaccinated against coronavirus at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.Richard Poskitt is vaccinated against coronavirus at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.
Richard Poskitt is vaccinated against coronavirus at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.

THE best way to get lifesaving coronavirus vaccine into a person’s arms is to make sure that it is available as close to people’s homes as possible.

That is why the use of local GPs and community pharmacies are vital in a speedy, efficient and effective rollout of the vaccination programme (The Yorkshire Post, January 25).

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It is therefore baffling that, yet again in this public health crisis, those behind desks in Whitehall just can’t stop thinking that “big is best” and we end up with plans and systems that might look good in a Minster’s red box, but are both inconvenient and ridiculous for those of us who live in the real world.

Diane Slack receives an injection of the coronavirus vaccine from a Ministry of Defence (MoD) employee at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.Diane Slack receives an injection of the coronavirus vaccine from a Ministry of Defence (MoD) employee at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.
Diane Slack receives an injection of the coronavirus vaccine from a Ministry of Defence (MoD) employee at West Yorkshire's first large vaccination centre set up at Spectrum Community Health CIC, in Wakefield.

In my home city of Sheffield our local GPs have done a tremendous job and, in a few weeks, given the jab of life to over 45,000 people.

Yet, this week, 10 out of the 15 local GP vaccination hubs have had to close due to having no vaccine deliveries. The Sheffield mass vaccine centre has opened and been given vaccine supplies. That means that some of the most vulnerable people in Sheffield will have to travel up to 14 miles to get a vaccine that the local GP could give them on their own doorstep.

Some will have no access to a car so will have to travel on public transport which in itself could be a coronavirus risk.

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When I questioned the Minister on this in the House of Lords, he said as part of his reply that “although I understand that it may be frustrating for a GP to stand idle, those are the practicalities of what we are doing”.

Quite an extraordinary thing to be Government policy in 
the middle of a public health crisis.

It is time for the Government to reset and understand that local convenient access is the key to getting these vaccines in as many arms as speedily as possible.

Let them trust our local GPs and community pharmacies to be at the forefront of the vaccination programme and not large, distant centres, that are getting priority for vaccine supplies.

From: JKM Krawiec, Station Road, North Thoresby.

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I RECOGNISE the requirements of equity in the distribution and availability of vaccines, and don’t have a problem with the Government doing this. However many of us in the North are cynical that if the situation was reversed, and it was to here that extra vaccines were needed, then would the Government have had the same response?

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