1/9 Just to give a sense of how the 50 hospital hubs are actually managing their covid-19 vaccination campaigns, here's an anonymised plan from one trust we have been talking to today. Gives good picture of complexities, inter-dependencies and huge effort at pace involved.
2/9 Their local CCG and GPs are providing the hospital with a list of over 80s who are able to attend the hospital site. The hospital's appointment bookers will then ring those people to book them into a timed 15 minute slot. Number of people per slot will obviously vary by trust
3/9 Vaccination will take place in a separate dedicated clinic building. This is deliberately sited next to a car park to allow easy access by car for over 80s. This is obviously, and importantly, separate from main clinical space where there may be covid-19 patients.
4/9 At the same time hospital is dedicating a number of afternoon slots to care home workers. It will be contacting local care homes to identify which workers will be attending in which slot. Their existing strong relationships with the care homes will obviously be very helpful.
5/9 When the person to be vaccinated attends the centre they will be automatically be registered on the hospital's electronic patient record system. This links to the electronic prescribing system which will electronically prescribe the vaccine.
6/9 The electronic prescribing system will cleverly automatically book the patient for their three week later second dose appointment. It will also, equally cleverly, automatically send a letter to the patient and their GP with details of that appointment and first dose.
7/9 There'll be an appropriately staffed recovery area should anyone need it. To ensure no vaccines are wasted, at end of day, high risk staff from hospital will use up any left over spare doses. Overall, very good way to deliver blended approach across JCVI target groups.
8/9 So here's my (incomplete list of people involved): GPs, CCG staff, appointment bookers, IT system developers, estates staff to configure new centre correctly, vaccinators, medically trained recovery area staff, receptionists to greet and direct patients.....
9/9 ...Pharmacy staff to store & transport doses to centre and car park staff to provide assistance if needed. This is a huge NHS team effort. And it's all being stood up in less than a week. Staff working with incredible effort. This is our wonderful NHS in full action. Hurrah!
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1/5 Today's COVID-19 vaccine logistics question is how and when will it be possible to break down the "large pizza boxes" of 975 Pfizer vaccines into smaller batches to use in care homes? Our latest understanding set out in short thread below.
2/5 This is a complex, highly specialised, task that can only be done in large sized -75C fridges. These are not usually found on hospital sites. So it needs to be done by appropriately expert wholesalers. In an analogy from the increasingly legendary Jonathan Van Tam....
3/5 It's not like taking a six pack of yoghurt out of your home fridge, breaking it up on the kitchen worktop, putting one in your bag, taking it to work and then storing it in the work fridge. Obviously vital to protect integrity of vaccine in this batch creation process.
1/4 Just to clarify this: telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/12/0…. I said in my twitter thread: "We therefore have to work on the precautionary basis that this initial batch of 800,000 could be the only batch we receive for some time." ....
2/4 ...The key words are "precautionary basis" and "could". The principle is that we should act on the basis that this could be the only batch we receive for some time. We are all hoping and are very confident that there will be a lot more doses than 800k.
3/4 Every day that goes past, we become more confident we will get a lot more and get them soon. But acting on a precautionary basis means that we should use the initial batch as much as possible for care home staff / residents and over 80s - the JCVI priorities.
1/18 From early next week, probably Tuesday, 50 of our NHS hospital trust members will start to administer Pfizer vaccine. Who will they vaccinate, where, and what are issues involved? Explainer thread follows. Spoiler alert – large, complex, important logistical challenge!
2/18 Despite challenge, key to remember we’re lucky to be one of the first countries in the world to be able to start mass COVID-19 vaccination at this point. However challenging the actual delivery of the vaccination will be, this is a fantastic development we need to welcome!
3/18 At a top level, the challenge is to match yesterday’s JCVI prioritisation of who should receive vaccine first with yesterday’s @MHRAgovuk conditions of authorisation. This authorisation sets out complex requirements on how the vaccine can be transported, stored and used.
1/21 Parliament votes on the new tiered restctions on Tuesday. A lot of comment in today’s papers on what’s happening in the hospital sector. Important questions on NHS capacity, demand, preparedness, Nightingales etc. Thread below sets out NHS hospital trust perspective.
2/21 Have deliberately concentrated in thread on hospitals as this is where current public debate ahead of Tuesday’s vote is. But many of same issues apply to community, mental health and ambulance trusts, all of whom are under the same current level of pressure as hospitals.
3/21 Running a hospital at the moment is much more complex & difficult than normal due to COVID-19. That often doesn’t show up in usual national data that some are currently quoting (e.g. NHS capacity levels below last year / not under real pressure so where's the problem?)
2/17 Document sets out detailed proposals for how health & care integration should work on ground going forward, from April 2021. And legislative options for NHS Bill next year on how to put ICSs on statutory basis (from April 2022?) Therefore triggers a very important debate.
3/17 Universal support for the need to speed up integration of health and care at local level, so strong agreement on the strategic direction of travel. Important to remember this as there will be different views, some of them strongly held, on the details of how to do this.
1/19 What should happen on December 3? My new blog: nhsproviders.org/news-blogs/blo…. Covered in today's Times: thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/m…. Tweet thread below sets out why the NHS is worried about the risk of trading looser restrictions for Xmas for a third phase of covid over winter.
2/19 Where are we now on infections rates and admissions levels? Welcome signs that rate of hospital admissions in Liverpool/Manchester finally starting to slow down. But this hasn’t yet happened consistently in rest of country. Worrying rates of increase in some places......
3/19 ...It’s therefore still too early to tell if our current national lockdown will have the consistent effect that’s needed. The working assumption is that it will do, but the next five to seven days will be crucial in confirming that.