Be patient plea over second Covid vaccination

Vulnerable patients who have already had their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine should wait to be contacted to rearrange their second.

Initial guidelines had been for follow up jabs to be delivered within three weeks.

But following a change to Governmentadvice,cityhealth chiefs are now racing to fix new appointments to ensure as many people as possible can get their initial treatment.

“If you’re due a second vaccination next week, the contact centre will contact you and inform you your vaccination has been cancelled, said David Chandler, deputy chief officer and chief financial officer at Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

“You don’t need to do anything, you don’t need to ring your practice or the call centre, the call centre will call you.

“They’re working through a considerable list because we’ve been very successful at doing first jabs, so it’s not something we can do overnight, but we will be contacting every member of the public who has had the first vaccination to cancel the second one.”

Mr Chandler was speaking at a meeting of Sunderland City Council’s Health and WellbeingScrutinyCommittee,which was held by videolink.

The latest guidance is that a second jab should now be given within 10 weeks of the first.

However, some in the city are believed to have already hadtheirfollow-updoseafterit was ‘impossible to get in touch to cancel the second’ after the change in official advice.

“We can understand the sense of frustration,” Mr Chandler added.

“It’s not a local decision, if you asked local GPs I’m sure they would love to give the secondvaccinationsandtheywere telling people as they got jabs it’s really important to come back for the second jab.”