Door-to-door jabs for the housebound

Door-to-door Covid-19 vaccinations for the most vulnerable patients in Sunder land are expected to start next week.

The rollout of the Oxford vaccine, which was delivered to Wearside for the first time this week, is expected to allow jabs to be given from more locations.

But families have been urged to consider whether a home visit will be necessary to ensure they can get their first dose as soon as possible.

“Bear in mind the pace of delivery for housebound patients will be slow because it is a house-to-house trip – giving 1,000 patients house to house trips will take longer than on a [vaccination site],” said Dr Fadi Khalil, a GP and vice chairman of Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG).

“They will deliver those as fast as they can, but it will probably take two or three weeks to go through the full housebound list.

“Therefore we’re asking people, if they do call the call centre, to consider if they truly are housebound.

“If they can make their way to a PCN site, that will be the quickest way to get the vaccine.”

Dr Khalil was speaking at a meeting of Sunderland City Council’s Health and Well being Scrutiny Committee, which was held by videolink and broadcast via YouTube.

Families have been urged to wait to be contacted either by their GP practice or the city’s Covid call centre to arrange vaccination appointments.

J abs are expected to be available from all of Wear side’ s six primary care networks (PCNs) by Wednesday.