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GPs say rule change makes covid vaccine programme ‘unfeasibly challenging’


Coronavirus vaccinations at GP practices will now take ‘twice as long’ after regulators announced new rules just days before the jabs are rolled out across primary care.

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency announced patients would have to be observed for 15 minutes after they received the vaccine. This came after two people had severe allergic reactions to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.

Primary care directors told HSJ the change means they have had to overhaul plans in their primary care networks and, in some areas, the vaccine programme will be “unfeasibly challenging” to deliver.

Sources told HSJ workforce plans are being overhauled, while vaccines risk being wasted because of the additional time constraints. There have been claims some practices may drop the vaccination programme altogether, as they lack capacity to carry out 15-minute observations for each patient.

One primary care director, who spoke to HSJ anonymously, said: “For us, we now need additional space for an observation area. It also makes it more difficult to efficiently flow through the vaccines as the actual vaccination process might take a few minutes, but the through flow of patients will be limited by the 15-minute wait.”

They added: “The vaccine now taking at least twice as long to do creates logistical problems. Not insurmountable but there nonetheless."

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: HSJ, 11 December 2020

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