‘Desperate for answers’ over roll-out of vaccine
Sunderland’s council leader has said the region’s leaders are desperate for information on how they can help roll out the vaccination programme.
The Government confirmed yesterday thePfiz er and BioNTech jab will be given to those most at risk from next week following its approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
But while the development has been celebrated as an “early Christmas present” by Sunderland City Council leader Councillor Graeme Miller, he has concerns about the lack of information from Government as it looks to support the NHS’s clinical commissioning groups, hospitals and GPs deliver the vaccine.
He says leaders across Tyne and Wear and Northumberland, known as the LA7, make regular contact with the Government over how they can help end the pandemic, but few answers have been given.
Cllr Miller said a request to open a testing site at Washington to help roll out the mass testing Health Secretary Matt Hancock promised last month had been turned down.
The council leader said that no guidance had been given on how the North East could deliver mass testing across an area with a population of 2.2million.
He said that the muchpraised mass testing scheme in Liverpool involved 2,000 members of the British Army which won’t be an option across the entire UK.
In the meantime, the LA7 has pledged to help Newcastle Hospitals Trust as it takes the lead of the region’s vaccination project, with an acknowledgement it will be a “mammoth task”.
Cllr Miller said: “It is very frustrating to be talking to the Government – and nobody is playing politics with this – it’s just the LA7 trying to work with them, with our chief executives, director of public health talking to civil servants and the leaders talking to ministers.
"We’re having a lot of conversations, but we’re getting very little back.
"The problem is they get the headlines, but then there is no solution or detail when we say ‘Right, how is Sunderland going to get mass testing?’
"What we are doing is being the grown up in the room and we will still continue to talk to Government as the North East comes together and has those conversations.”
The Department for Health and Social Care has been contacted for comment.