More than 300,000 housebound yet to get booster jabs

Ministers accused of ignoring those at greatest risk, after GPS opt out of home vaccination visits

Senior doctors accused the Government of a ‘serious failure’ to come up with another plan

NEARLY two thirds of housebound people have yet to receive their Covid booster after many GPS opted out of delivering top-up jabs, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.

Ministers were last night accused of “ignoring” those at greatest risk from Covid as internal Whitehall data revealed at least 300,000 people unable to travel for jabs had not been protected by a booster vaccine.

Relatives of elderly and vulnerable people up to 10 weeks overdue for their booster jabs said they had been given “no answers” by the NHS despite fears over the omicron variant, cases of which rose by more than 50 per cent in a day yesterday.

In a sign of mounting government concern over the slow rollout, Sajid Javid last week said GPS would be paid a £30 incentive for every housebound person given their booster, and freed from carrying out routine health checks on over-75s. However, a significant proportion of family doctors who visited homes to give first and second jabs have already opted out of the booster campaign, saying they do not have the time or the staff.

It follows weeks of negotiations between GPS and the Government over who should be responsible for driving the booster campaign, and an ongoing row about doctors’ workload.

Senior doctors last night said ministers had known since the summer that many GPS would not be giving home boosters and accused the Government of a “serious failure” to come up with another plan. One Tory MP blamed the slow rollout on “faceless bureaucrats” from the NHS, while another said they would demand answers at this week’s Prime Minister’s Questions.

In guidance issued this week, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation said it was “clear that those at greatest risk must be prioritised, including those who are housebound”.

The majority are understood to be in elderly and clinically vulnerable groups declared eligible for boosters when the campaign started on Sept 16. But according to an unpublished Whitehall analysis seen by The Daily Telegraph, at the end of last week only 170,000 housebound people had been given their top-up jabs, about 36 per cent of the estimated total cohort of 470,000. Some estimates have placed the total number of housebound people in England at closer to a million.

More than 60 per cent of over-50s have been given their booster, and the over-40s were invited for their jab two weeks ago. Ministers have set a target for all eligible adults to be offered their top-up by the end of January.

Mr Javid told the Commons on Nov 29 that booster vaccinations were being “primarily carried out by GPS”. Asked on BBC Breakfast last week about the case of an 83-year-old man who had been unable to get a booster at home for more than a month, the Health Secretary replied: “I don’t know the details of that particular situation but it does worry me to hear that.”

In areas including Kent, London, Wiltshire, Cambridgeshire and Devon, responsibility for vaccinating housebound people has been taken over from GPS by local NHS clinical commissioning groups or contracted out to private pharmacy firms. NHS England has also asked for help from an army of St John Ambulance volunteer drivers.

But the rollout has faltered in many areas, with NHS leaders struggling to find the staff to go out and administer the jabs. Progress has also been slowed because the Pfizer vaccine must be transported carefully to patients within six hours, and clinicians must wait for 15 minutes to check possible side effects.

Last week, Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust admitted that more than 5,000 housebound people in the city had yet to receive a home visit. Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group has asked for “patience” while staff carry out this “logistically complex programme”. In Buckinghamshire, health leaders have admitted that a contract with a leading pharmacy to transport jabs to people’s homes fell through two

weeks ago. Charles King, 91, an RAF veteran from Guildford in Surrey, described the situation as a “total disgrace”. “Two months ago, I was told by the NHS that I’m a vulnerable person; I’ve had three emails from the NHS to get a booster jab, and I’m simply unable to get one,” Mr King said. “I served my country, I spent four years in the RAF. I want it to serve me in my old age.”

David Warburton, the Conservative MP for Somerton and Frome, said he had been contacted about problems with housebound people accessing vaccines, “especially in rural areas”.

“I have a PMQ on Wednesday and will be asking the Prime Minister how we’re going to get the booster to all, and if I can meet Saj to get to the bottom of this and seek a quick remedy,” he said.

Kelly Tolhurst, the Conservative MP for Rochester and Strood, said “faceless bureaucrats” at NHS clinical commissioning groups (CCGS) were able to avoid the criticism aimed at GPS for not providing boosters fast enough. “We need a proper system for dealing with housebound patients,” she said. “The CCG was not driving it as much as I would have liked to see. There has been some delay in getting round to all the housebound residents. We’re pushing the CCG again.”

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said: “The general clunkiness which has affected the booster rollout seems to have resulted in some housebound older people still waiting for a nurse to come. This would have been worrying in any situation, but is all the more so now because of the potential threat from the new omicron variant.”

Professor Azeem Majeed, a GP in west London and head of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, said his practice had opted out of delivering boosters but that the Government had been given “plenty of time” to come up with a new strategy.

“There is certainly too much variation in the delivery of jabs to the housebound and that is a significant problem because many of these people are extremely vulnerable to Covid,” he said. “But many GPS opted out months ago. Plenty of people, including myself, have been warning since the summer that we needed to come up with a new integrated system to deliver jabs to people in their homes. Clearly there has been a serious failure to do that.”

This year, a Freedom of Information request showed a fifth of primary care networks – groups of GP surgeries – who took part in the first phase of the vaccine programme pulled out of the second.

In a letter to The Telegraph, Dr Gary Howsam, the vice chair of the Royal College of GPS, argues today that “throwing money” at GPS is “no panacea” to increasing productivity. “GPS and our teams already work at capacity in a workload and workforce crisis,” Dr Howsam says. “General practice is the bedrock of the NHS and needs to be adequately supported to manage the ever-growing demand for care and to ensure that patients are safe.”

An NHS spokesman said: “Local NHS and GP teams are contacting their eligible housebound patients, and we are working closely with St John’s Ambulance to give local areas additional support. We are also providing additional funding to help local teams secure additional staff so that all eligible housebound patients are offered a booster as quickly and safely as possible.”

The Department of Health was approached for comment.