More than 30,000 jag appointments missed in Edinburgh and Lothians

More than 30,000 vaccination appointments have been missed since NHS Lothian set up mass vaccination centres in Edinburgh and surrounding areas.

During February, when the health board’s mass vaccination centres opened, 8,641 of the 102,460 appointments scheduled by NHS Lothian were not attended by patients – around one in every 12 vaccine appointments.

However, in March, 22,106 of the 140,190 scheduled appointments were missed by patients

– more than one in every seven appointments.

In the same month, NHS Lothian, Royal Mail, the National Delivery Programme and NHS National Services Scotland published a joint apology after a number of vaccines were unable to take place due to delays in patients receiving their vaccine appointments via post.

The apology came after some vaccination centres in the Lothians saw “literally no patients” on Monday March 15 and Tuesday March 16 due to the communications delay, with staff told to try and find members of the public or police officers to take the leftover jags.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has said the Scottish Government is investigating whether the issue is with Royal Mail or with the NHS National Services Scotland centralised database.

The figures, unveiled by the Local Democracy Reporting Service using freedom of information legislation, does not include data for April.

The data only includes missed appointments at the region’s mass vaccination centres, as GP data is not held centrally.