Three or four outbreaks of virus in GP surgeries every week

THERE are three or four Covid-19 outbreaks at GP practices across Derbyshire every week, a local health chief has revealed.

Clive Newman, director of GP development at the Derby and Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group – which oversees health services in the county and city – said that this had not resulted in any practices having to temporarily close.

Mr Newman, speaking at a South Derbyshire District Council meeting, said that the outbreaks of coronavirus were often not among GPs but patient-facing staff, such as receptionists.

He also told the meeting that Swadlincote was to gain a Covid vaccination centre at Oaklands Village Community Centre, by appointment only for those most at risk. This centre would start off small and ramp up quickly, as supply of vaccines comes available.

He said the Covid outbreaks hitting doctors’ surgeries was “very disruptive” but GP practices had done “pretty well” in comparison with hospital and ambulance services. Staff working in reception, for example, would be sent home to self-isolate for two weeks and the phones at the practice would be redirected, he said.

He said: “We are getting three or four every week, where the staff get an outbreak and the practice has to reduce its service.”

Mr Newman said some surgeries had closed, but not due to outbreaks, instead because they were not Covid secure – or too tightly spaced for social distancing to function. These practices continued work but were not actually open to the public. He said GP activity in December was 10% higher than in the same month in the previous year.

Mr Newman said GPs were heavily constricted by personal protective equipment (PPE) which has reduced capacity by a quarter.

He said sickness absence among GPs was currently at 6.5% across Derbyshire, above an average of 4%, but had been much higher – at 16% – during the first wave of the pandemic.

Of the vaccination centre at Oaklands Village Community Centre, in Swadlincote, he said: “As, hopefully, more vaccines come through, we are hoping to ramp up our plan very quickly to hit the national targets, where the first four priority groups are vaccinated by the middle of February.”

He said there was an aim to vaccinate nearly all frontline health staff by the end of January – 98%t.

The top four priority groups for vaccinations, currently receiving the jab are: Residents in care homes and their carers; patients ages 80 or over and frontline health and social care workers; patients aged 75 and over; and patients aged 70 and over alongside any residents aged 16-69 who are clinically extremely vulnerable.

There are 240,829 people in Derbyshire, including Derby, which fall into these four categories.

Local vaccination figures are not being made available, by either local leaders of the central NHS, just at a regional level.

The University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital in Burton, said last week it had vaccinated more than 7,500 people.