Army to distribute virus jab
Forces to work with NHS and councils, says PM
EVERY CARE home resident in England will be offered a coronavirus vaccine by the end of January, the Prime Minister has pledged, as he said the Army would use “battle preparation techniques” to distribute the jab across the UK.
Speaking from Downing Street last night, Boris Johnson said the Government, NHS and armed forces are “truly throwing everything” at getting as many vaccines into arms as possible.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned earlier in the day that a vaccine may need to be given every six months to be effective, but he believed this national lockdown would be the last of its kind.
The PM has already pledged to vaccinate 15 million of the most vulnerable people in the UK by February 15, and 1.5 million people have already received the jab.
And last night he said: “By the end of the week there will be over 1,000 GP- led sites providing vaccines, 223 hospital sites, seven giant vaccination centres, and the first wave of 200 community pharmacies.
“If all goes well, these together should have the capacity to deliver hundreds of thousands of vaccines per day by January 15, and it is our plan that everyone should have a vaccination available with a radius of 10 miles.”
He said: “This is a national challenge on a scale like nothing we’ve seen before, and it will require an unprecedented national effort. Of course, there will be difficulties, appointments will be changed but the army is working hand in glove with the NHS and local councils to set up our vaccine network and using battle preparation techniques to help us keep up the pace.”
But he added “battle preparation techniques” had been drawn up between the NHS, armed forces and local councils to make the system work.
However some GP surgeries were facing issues getting the vaccine, which can be “demoralising” for staff and “confusing and disappointing for patients”, the Royal College of GPs has said.
While Mr Hancock told MPs: “I anticipate we will probably need to re- vaccinate because we don’t know the longevity of the protection from these vaccines. We don’t know how frequently it will be, but it might need to be every six months, it might need to be every year.”
Meanwhile, NHS England Chief Executive Sir Simon Stevens warned of the “incredibly serious situation” in the country’s hospitals.
He said: “We’ve got 50 per cent more coronavirus patients in our hospitals than we had at the peak of the April first wave, and that is true in every region in the country.”
He said 10,000 more people had gone into hospitals with coronavirus since Christmas Day, and added: “That’s the equivalent of filling 20 acute hospitals with extra coronavirus patients.”
And the traditional winter pressures on the NHS meant the job of staff was even harder.
It comes as a hospital in Kent may have to start refusing critical care after it had become overwhelmed.
The Health Service Journal reported Darent Valley Hospital, near Dartford, declared it was at “CRITCON level four”, which in NHS guidance means “resources overwhelmed, possibility of triage by resource ( non- clinical refusal or withdrawal of critical care due to resource limitation)”.
Mr Hancock said it was “impossible” to put a percentage on the absolute risk of the NHS being overwhelmed in the next two weeks.
He said that as pressure on the NHS grows “it is more stretched in delivering the services that people need” and pointed to the cancelling of routine elective procedures which has had to take place in some hospitals in recent days.