Apologies for not providing regular updates recently on progress with our Covid Vaccination Campaign, but please read on for an up to date view of progress and important information concerning the vaccination of our under 40 year old patient population.
As always, we wanted to say a thousand thank yous to Staff, Volunteers and Patients involved in running or attending our Covid Clinics over the last six months. The support from all stakeholders has been amazing and we have felt honoured to be able to deliver this mission critical service to our patient population.
The current vaccination status for Sheringham patients in Cohorts 1-12 is shown in the table below. It is worthy of note that 7,059 of our patients or 74.1% of our entire patient population, have received at least one dose of vaccine.
Sheringham Under 40s
We are aware that our under 40s might be wondering why the practice has not continued to deliver the campaign to those under the age of 40 in its patient population.
Please be aware that this is wholly due to technical and logistical factors involved with the programme and not to any reticence on our part to deliver this service to our younger patients. Unfortunately, four key factors made this unfeasible
- Patient Numbers in Cohorts 11 and 12
- Changed Vaccine Requirements for this Age Group
- Vaccine Characteristics
- Fixed Supply Arrangements
The vaccine that has been delivered locally for this age group is the PfizerBioNTech vaccine which, at the time of planning this phase of the campaign, was delivered in batches of 1,170 vaccines with a storage life of only three days.
Due to National planning and constraints on inviting younger age Cohorts, we as a practice did not have sufficient patients to invite to be in a position to fill a clinic and use all the vaccine stock in the allocated amount of time. We have only 586 Cohort 11 patients and 757 Cohort 12 patients.
Therefore, to prevent vaccine wastage, we had to take the decision that all the Under 40s in our Primary Care Network of Fakenham, Holt, Sheringham and Wells, would be vaccinated at Fakenham, which is the largest practice in our network and our other nominated Local Vaccination Site.
By the time the guidance changed on storage of the PfizerBioNTech vaccine, it was too late to change these arrangements as vaccine is delivered to a fixed four week planning window.
We are really sorry if our younger patients feel let down in any way, but unfortunately, our hands were tied in this regard and no other alternative was available. Many Primary Care Networks operate a single site Local Vaccination Service only, in line with National guidance, so we are fortunate to have been able to run the campaign for the majority of our patients, and sincere apologies to those who were unable to benefit.
At present we have three remaining second dose clinics planned for towards the end of July using AstraZeneca vaccine.
Once again we want to say thank you once again to all members of our incredible team who have really pulled out the stops and gone over and above to help us deliver this important service. And to our fantastic army of volunteers who have been so organised, dedicated and patient, despite the many weather challenges.
And a massive thank you once again to you – our patients – for supporting us by coming to the surgery for your vaccines even when the weather has been challenging and the going tough! We are proud to have been able to deliver this incredibly important service to you.