Hospital staff likely to get covid vaccine first

Hospital trusts have been put on notice that the challenging storage requirements of the first covid vaccines are likely to mean the vaccination of their staff will have to form the vanguard of the planned roll-out next month due.

HSJ reported last week that healthcare staff would share priority with “care home residents and staff” in the vaccine roll-out. 

However, a letter sent to trust chief executives by NHS England seeks to clarify the situation by stressing that “different vaccines are likely to be better suited to different settings because the vaccines are likely to have different storage, reconstitution and administration requirements”. 

“Given what we currently know about the first expected vaccine, the imperative is that NHS trusts are ready to start vaccinating from the beginning of December.” 

Trusts are one of several components of the vaccination programme that includes primary care-run sites, mass vaccination centres, and “roving” visits to those who need them. Local systems and regional teams will decide “the most appropriate combination of models required to deliver the vaccine to their local populations based on local needs” the letter says. However, during the early stages of the roll-out this is likely to be dictated by the vaccine types that become available.

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 25 November 2020