Medics need greater logistical support for mass vaccination to succeed

sir – Local GPS are organising Covid-19 vaccinations (Letters, January 3) in our town football stadium.

I had my jab an hour later than my appointment after a wait outside in the cold with about 50 other over-80s, with no social-distancing controls. Processing of patients was confused and the valuable medical professionals were often left waiting for patients to be directed to them.

Administering the injections is the only part of the operation requiring trained medical practitioners. There must be many managers from nearby Stansted Airport, experts in complex logistical problems, who would surely be willing to help. Community medical teams could then focus on their regular duties, already compromised by Covid-19.

If the inoculation programme is to be our salvation, surely we should be using the best people to streamline and optimise it.

Peter Latham

Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire sir – As an NHS consultant nearing retirement and a former clinical director, what surprises me about the bureaucracy surrounding retired medics who want to help in the crisis is that anyone is surprised by it at all.

Over my lifetime I have seen an exponential growth in the amount of nonsense that my colleagues and I have to endure in order to be allowed to (try to) do our jobs. It is all done in the name of “accountability” and “governance”, but most of it is drivel.

If the coronavirus outbreak has finally allowed the public to understand the extent of resourcewasting box-ticking by management that permeates the NHS, then it will have done some good.

Whether as a result the Government will be prepared to take its foot off our necks is another matter. Governments in general like to keep NHS doctors’ spending under tight control and, to date, their appetite has always been for increasing regulation.

Dr Nicholas Mark Hacking

Preston, Lancashire sir – There is a problem with retired doctors helping the NHS by carrying out Covid vaccinations – and that is indemnity.

As a retired senior medical partner who taught young doctors how to carry out injections, I contacted the Medical Defence Union and asked if I was covered against claims should a patient I vaccinated against Covid suffer, for example, an anaphylactic reaction. The answer is that, now I am no longer on the medical register, I am not covered by the MDU. So, should such a disaster occur, I would be on my own. This problem needs to be sorted out with some degree of urgency. Keith Barnard-jones Dorchester

sir – If I fail to vaccinate my dogs by the manufacturer’s schedule, no kennels will allow them to stay. Will other countries allow entry to Britons vaccinated against manufacturers’ recommendations?

Dr Jim Finlayson Beauly, Inverness-shire