AT LAST! VACCINE ROLLOUT 7 DAYS A WEEK
(... that’s a MONTH behind England)
SCOTLAND’s flagging vaccine rollout will finally be escalated to a seven-day operation to speed up delivery of the life-saving jabs.
From today, staff at Scotland’s main mass vaccination centre will work every day of the week, amid mounting evidence the inoculation programme is trailing behind the rest of the UK.
The move comes more than four weeks after the UK Government introduced seven-day jabs in England – and the Scottish Government is now ‘actively considering’ following suit at a number of other sites.
The Mail on Sunday revealed last week that the SNP had been forced to bring in the Army to help with the jab rollout, while the number of vaccinations carried out in Scotland has dropped for the third day in a row.
A first dose has been given to only 380,667 people in Scotland, compared with 5,085,771 in England – about 6 per cent of the total south of the Border.
Last night, opposition politicians welcomed the seven-day rollout but
said it was ‘far too late’. The dramatic ramping-up of the vaccination campaign comes more than six weeks after the first jabs were administered in Scotland – and about a month after England rolled out similar full-time hubs.
Meanwhile, despite Nicola Sturgeon promising the sluggish rollout was ‘picking up pace’, the latest daily figures show that the number of Scots receiving jabs has fallen for three days in a row.
With a record 2,085 Scots in hospital being treated for coronavirus, and the mainland under strict Level 4 lockdown, the need for the vaccine has never been clearer.
Last night, Glasgow MSP Anas Sarwar, a Scottish Labour leadership candidate, said: ‘This is welcome news but should already have been happening.’
Scottish Tory health spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘Though long overdue, this is a welcome move given that the SNP Government needs to step up their game with the vaccine rollout currently going far too slowly.
‘Now that the SNP Government has finally decided to administer the vaccine seven days a week, we must now see a swift improvement in jab numbers. The public deserve nothing less.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘We want to vaccinate as many people as quickly as possible.
‘The NHS Louisa Jordan will be open seven days for vaccinations from this weekend and we are actively considering seven-day operation at a range of sites in
‘This is welcome but should already have been happening’
addition. Vaccination is a vital tool in our work to suppress the virus but other measures including testing, and lockdown restrictions remain absolutely essential to suppress Covid to the lowest possible level in Scotland.’
The Scottish Government has, in recent days, faced stinging criticism for the slow pace of its vaccination programme in comparison to England.
Unlike in England, where local NHS commissioning groups are in charge of vaccine supplies for their areas, in Scotland the system is more centralised.
Currently, GPs place orders for vaccines with health boards. They pass the request to NHS Scotland’s procurement service, which then uses logistics firm Movianto.
It has led to family doctors complaining that they cannot plan ahead and are not receiving supplies on time.
The British Medical Association Scotland has slammed the rollout north of the Border as ‘patchy’ and called for GPs to be able to order supplies directly, so that they can better manage their patients.
The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) in Scotland has said ‘all options must be on the table’ to resolve the issues faced by those administering the vaccines.
Last night Dr David Shackles, joint chairman of RCGP Scotland, said: ‘It is vital GPs, and indeed all those who are vaccinating patients, have the tools they need to deliver this programme successfully.
‘Uncertainty over when vaccine supplies will reach practices is causing considerable problems in terms of booking patients in for vaccines and scheduling clinics.
‘GPs need reassurances that, when they schedule a vaccination clinic, they will have vaccine available to administer to patients and will not need to cancel or make changes at the last minute.’ Just over a third of Scots aged over 80 – about 34 per cent – have received their first dose of the vaccine.
This lags behind England’s vaccination rate for those over 80, which is 71 per cent.
On Friday, it was confirmed that one in ten of all adults in England had received the first dose, compared with 5.3 per cent in Scotland.
Official figures published yesterday by the Scottish Government showed only 22,213 vaccinations were carried out in the previous 24 hours, taking the total to 380,667. However, the daily figure was lower than the 23,583 published on Friday, the 24,962 on Thursday and the 25,327 on Wednesday. Overall, England has managed to vaccinate 5,085,771 people, protecting proportionately far more of the population than the 380,667 in Scotland. And hospital admissions for Covid continue to increase across Scotland. Yesterday’s figures showed there were 2,085 hospital admissions in the last 24 hours – up 32 on Friday’s figure.
Meanwhile 159 people were fighting for their lives in intensive care – two fewer than the previous day. There were 76 new deaths. Scottish Labour has called for all healthcare staff to be vaccinated by the end of February. With more cases in hospitals, it fears an outbreak of hospital-acquired coronavirus infections.
Scottish Labour interim leader Jackie Baillie said: ‘Scotland has had one of the highest Covid-19 death rates in the world and, with hospital cases increasing, it is more vital than ever our health service staff have maximum protection.’
Meanwhile, despite concerns about healthcare workers, the Scottish Government has insisted the rollout for the next level of at-risk people – those aged 70-79 – is get ting under way. Blue envelopes containing coronavirus vaccination appointments for the cohort will start arriving through letterboxes tomorrow, it has said.
‘GPs need reassurances they will have vaccine’