Families denied holidays amid a million Covid app blunders

MORE than one million vaccine records have been affected by NHS blunders, in some cases locking people out of travel overseas, after the wrong information was recorded by health officials.

When Covid jabs are administered, the information is supposed to be shared with centralised databases and uploaded to the NHS app, which grants a “Covid pass”.

This should mean that individuals have proof of their vaccine status, with two jabs being required by many countries, including the UK, for unrestricted travel. But more than one million vaccine records have now been found to contain errors, including those which have left double-jabbed people without the proof they need.

The blunders have left families unable to go on holiday, or visit loved ones abroad, with some even having a third jab after desperate calls failed to resolve the matter.

Freedom of Information disclosures reveal 1,072,070 cases in which Covid vaccine records have been corrected.

Experts said the figures from NHS Digital were likely to be the tip of the iceberg, with many errors only coming to light when holidaymakers checked the NHS app and found their pass missing.

The monthly statistics show the number of corrections peaked last May, in the run-up to the summer holidays, when close to 200,000 records had to be altered.

More than 30 countries now recognise the NHS Covid pass as proof of vaccination status.

Investigations by The Sunday Telegraph uncovered hundreds of cases in which people have been locked out of the vaccine passport system because vaccine centres had recorded the wrong data. Readers told how they faced missing out on holidays and entry to major events because of the failings. Experts said that, most commonly, the problems resulted from human error.

Some of those affected have spent months battling NHS bureaucracy in an attempt to get the crucial update to their records.

Hundreds of readers have contacted The Telegraph after going round in circles trying to get their records updated.

Some said they were so desperate they resorted to having a third jab to

ensure that two were recorded, allowing them to travel abroad.

In August, the NHS launched a Vaccine Data Resolution Service, in an attempt to deal with the deluge of cases.

Health officials at NHS Digital said that since this opened, 184,000 cases have been resolved.

However, they were unable to say how many complaints had been received from those who had not been able to get their data correctly recorded.

Last month, the Prime Minister said proof of boosters is likely to be required for many countries in coming weeks, and may also be added to the requirements for incoming travel to Britain.

One retired IT director from south London was left at his “wits’ end” after making more than 100 attempts over five months to get his record corrected.

Although the 59-year-old had both jabs, the first one from February was missing from the record, so his second jab, in May, registered as his first.

With a holiday to Iceland planned, he resorted to desperate measures, booking a third jab in August, which registered as his second.

In order for the app to show a “booster jab”, he went on to have a fourth vaccine, after efforts to resolve the matter with his GP practice and NHS app customer service repeatedly failed. Dan Ciubotaru, professor of mathematics at the University of Oxford, who needed to visit his elderly father in Romania, said he “went round in circles” after discovering his second jab had not been recorded on the app.

It took multiple phone calls, emails and the threat of booking a third jab before the problem was rectified by his GP.

One NHS vaccination centre manager said that many cases were only detected when people looked at the app for the first time, as they tried to make travel plans. At some large sites he worked at, as many as 50 patients a day had been affected by recording errors, the manager said.

An NHS spokesman said that changes had been made to less than 1 per cent of records.

He said: “The Vaccination Data Resolution Service is working quickly and efficiently to help resolve any issues as and when people experience them.”