Update on Covid-19 vaccine appointment cancellations

Earlier this week I shared a post on social media from a local GP practice advising that scheduled Covid-19 vaccination appointments for patients in the Blackhall and Peterlee area had been cancelled at short notice because they would no longer receive the vaccines from NHS England.

The text of the post is reproduced below:

For those patients who may not be aware, we have had to cancel our covid vaccine clinic that was due to take place next week.

Unfortunately this has been out of our control.

We have been working extremely hard to put everything in place to administer the vaccines and we were set up and ready to go from Monday.  However, we received a call from NHS England late yesterday afternoon to advise us that we now wouldn't be receiving any vaccine next week, and would receive a new supply in January with the date to be confirmed.

We appreciate that patients will be disappointed, as are the staff who have worked so hard to get this set up.

We will be in touch with patients in due course once we know when our next vaccine delivery date will be, however this is unlikely to be before January.

Alarmed at this development, and following a number of calls from concerned residents, I contacted the Director of Public Health to ask for any information that would explain this sudden change of plan. I received an update this afternoon from the Director of Integrated Community Services at the Council Durham Care Partnership setting out a little more detail:

Thank you for your enquiry.

 

With NHS partners we had planned to open vaccination centres in 5 GP Practices on 21 December 2020 to give the vaccination to the over 80s and some care home staff. These were in addition to 3 GP Practices which opened on 14 December and 6 opening on 16 December.

 

Unfortunately we were asked, by the NHS centrally, at short notice, earlier this week to delay the opening until early January 2021. We share the disappointment of the residents of Peterlee and Blackhall. 

 

We expect vaccination to start from the delayed sites in January 2021. If the Oxford vaccine is approved we are planning to vaccinate many more of our residents across an increased number of sites.

In addition to this response I’m also aware that our MP Grahame Morris has written to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care asking for a full explanation of the circumstances behind this development.