Vaccination given to 34,000 people - but it could have been more

Around 34,000 people in the Horsham area have now received life-saving jabs against Covid-19 - but the figure could have been higher.

Nearly 18,000 people have been vaccinated at Christ’s Hospital and another 16,000 at Horsham’s Park Surgery.

But the Horsham

Collaborative Primary Care Network, which covers Horsham’s Courtyard Surgery, Cowfold Surgery, Rudgwick Surgery and The Village Surgery in Southwater - and administers vaccines at Christ’s Hospital - has been left with 1,000 empty appointments.

Network clinical director Dr Matt Greenwood said it was ‘very frustrating.’

He said patient confusion had been caused by multiple invitations for vaccines going out, patients not keeping their contact details up to date and interruptions to the vaccine supply chain.

He said: “Our Primary Care Network, with the support from Horsham District Council and Christ’s Hospital School, have set up a very large and efficient service capable of vaccinating 2,500 people a day.

“This means we could when vaccine supply allows - vaccinate all our registered patients in the 40-49 year old group in just two days.

“Our patients will have the fastest access to vaccination locally via their GP.”

He said the site took a hige amount of time to set up and run with more than 600 hours of volunteer and surgery staff needed each day.

“Whilst we are 50 per cent empty the ‘mass vaccination sites’ have 2-3 weeks of waiting,” he added. “Patients of Courtyard, Southwater, Cowfold and Rudgwick would have been vaccinated faster if they had gone via their GP Surgery.”