GP persuades his patients in virus hotspot to have vaccine

A GP changed the minds of almost three fifths of vaccine refuseniks at his practice after he and his staff called those who had not shown up.

Of 224 patients who had been invited but had not yet booked a jab at the East Leicester Medical Practice, 128 scheduled an appointment after the call. Of those, 96 per cent went on to get the jab.

“The outcome was a lot better than we expected,” Dr Imran Farooqi, a GP partner at the practice, who led the project, said.

“Because we managed to book so many in it certainly boosted our morale and made it seem like it was a worthwhile time spent on a Saturday.”

Leicester has been under near-constant lockdown for the past year, and even as the rest of the country unlocked briefly last summer the city was kept under tight restrictions because of a rapid rise in cases. The practice cares for a high proportion of ethnic minority patients, and covers an area with high levels of social deprivation, both of which have been cited as risk factors for Covid-19.

“Unfortunately we’ve seen the vaccination uptake has been among the lowest, so it’s almost a perfect storm,” Dr Farooqi said.

Nadhim Zahawi, the vaccine minister, told Sky News last month that the Government was “very concerned” about the low uptake among some minoritiy communities.

Dr Farooqi said: “The plan was to see if this sort of pilot, getting clinicians to try and address patients’ concerns directly, would lead to a higher uptake.”

One Saturday morning last month four receptionists, two GPs and three clinical pharmacists hit the phones. Patients were asked if there was anything they wanted to know about the vaccine.

“There was a whole range of things that the patients had to talk about, some simple things like one patient was on iron tablets and for some reason thought they couldn’t have it,” Dr Farooqi said. “It was a simple case of saying actually they are perfectly safe.”