GP speaks of frustration that jabs not available to pensioners in his town

PENSIONERS are being asked to go to Birmingham for Covid jabs, an angry Derbyshire GP has revealed.

Dr James Betteridge-Sorby, a GP at Swadlincote Surgery, said his practice had not yet been given supplies of the vaccine. He said NHS England was instead suggesting to local patients that they could go to Birmingham for the injections.

Dr James Betteridge-Sorby said in a video posted on the surgery’s Facebook page that they shared the frustrations of local residents waiting on Covid-19 vaccines.

This comes as Derby Arena started giving vaccines for patients at 30 Derby GP surgeries from Thursday, January 7 and 18 GP practices in East Staffordshire started offering Covid jabs from the Pirelli Stadium in Burton on Wednesday, December 16.

The Swadlincote GP said that supply was being led nationally and that local GPs, such as himself, had no control and would like to see a timely roll-out of the jabs and evenly spread across the country.

Dr Betteridge-Sorby also said that he had his own personal concerns about not having been vaccinated against the virus yet, with fears for the safety of his patients and family.

He urged patients not to call the town’s GP practices asking for access to the Covid-19 vaccine because this may “delay care being given to our most sick patients”.

Dr Betteridge-Sorby said the Swadlincote GPs hoped to start administering the Covid-19 vaccine from the end of this week at

Oaklands Village in the town.

He said: “We are well aware of the frustration caused by the knowledge that practices in our immediate vicinity, such as Burton, are already vaccinating at Burton Albion (the Pirelli Stadium) and that practices in Derby are already vaccinating at the Derby Arena.

“It is our hope and expectation that we will begin to receive limited supplies of the vaccine towards the end of this week and the five surgeries will be working collaboratively to identify eligible patients across all our patient populations and invite them for a vaccination at a centralised location within the large public areas of Oaklands village, as and when supplies allow.”

A spokesman for Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group said the vaccination programme was being rolled out across Derbyshire in phases and asked people to remain patient and not contact their GP until they had an appointment.