Public Health England - Again

[cromwell]

This is a post from April 17th last year, when PHE refused help from private sector laboratories to help with covid testing.

PHE is a massive health service quango. 5,000 staff and a budget of £4.25 billion pounds a year.
They are supposed to be doing something important re vaccines for the government.
Only, some private firms who have offered to help with the task seem to doubt this.
the Daily Telegraph had a story yesterday about a British company called Apacor who gained approval from the Medicare and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency to supply 150,000 antigen tests to Britain. This is a South Korean test that the Germans are using.
BUT the PHE lab at Colindale has still not sent for a sample to be verified and says it hasn't got time to talk to Apacor until next week.
Apacor have been waiting for two weeks already.
Testing is supposed to be vitally important, so what's happening here?
Im what is happening is that the PHE is defending it's turf. They don't want some private firm turning up and showing them up. They are desperately trying to justify their own existence here because if these private firms can do what Public Health England can't, then what's the point of Public Health England?
Other private firms offering to help with testing have had no answer from the NHS, the government or PHE.
This is a scandal, I'm surprised the rest of the press haven't latched on to it.

Well, PHE are at it again. High street pharmacies want to help with the rollout of the Oxford covid jab. Simon Dukes of the Pharmaceutical Negotiating Services Committee has asked why the NHS is "scrabbling around" looking for vaccinators when his industry is ready to help.
He has pointed out that there are 11,400 pharmacies that administer the flu jab every year, with the capacity to vaccinate 1.3 million people per week.

So how keen is the government and NHS to get the vaccination done? Johnson can jump up and down and promise as much as he want, but it seems to me that the machinery of the British state is in a pretty poor way when it comes to actually DOING something.
It has also emerged that there are 5 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine yet to be used despite being passed for use despite being cleared for use a month since, and 3.5 million doses of the Oxford vaccine held up waiting to pass the regulator's safety checks.

And despite Boris Johnson saying that the vaccines would be rolled out "as fast as we possibly can", PHE has decided they are not delivering the vaccine on a Sunday.

Unbelievable.

[medsec222]

I wondered about Public Health England at the start of the first lockdown crommers. With regard to the protective clothing, the Government got the blame for not having enough of the required equipment, yet I seem to remember reading that PH England should have built up a good stock of equipment of this nature in reserve. to anticipate any pandemic/epidemic, but had failed to do so. In the event, when the pandemic occurred, there was no build up of stocks in reserve. I may be wrong about this of course or misread it.

[Workingman]

Cromwell, it is some weeks ago that I posted about the pharmacies and the wish of pharmacists to be involved in the vaccination programme. They got absolutely no response from government - not even a meeting with a minion. It is bordering on criminal negligence that they are still not part of the programme. They are already part of the NHS prescription service networks so very little set-up is required.

When the influenza programme ends, as it will soon, and If each of the premises could only do four per hour (space and 15 min recovery time allowing) that's knocking on for 2 million a week.

Starmer is calling for jabs to be given 24/7 but that is impractical given that clinics are located far and wide. Pharmacies on the other hand are local to most of us - a walk away.

[Kaz]

The only issue I would have with pharmacists vaccinating is that of space. Patients have to be monitored for 15 minutes after the jab, so they would need a big waiting area. Otherwise progress would be very slow

[Workingman]

The only issue I would have with pharmacists vaccinating is that of space. Patients have to be monitored for 15 minutes after the jab, so they would need a big waiting area. Otherwise progress would be very slow

Kaz, that's why I mentioned only four per hour.

Even if they could only do two per hour or if only half the pharmacies took part it still comes out at 1 million a week, and they would be on top of all the other efforts. All the pharmacies round here, including the ones in Morrison's and Asda, have consulting rooms - in, get jab, sit for 15 mins, out, next - and it could be done by appointment, as is the case with the flu jab.

[Suff]

Far too easy. Although the slight fly in the ointment is that Astrzenica will have a 2m a week supply available from mid Jan. To utilise the pharmacies they would need to double that. Then they would need to sustain it for 8 weeks to hit "herd immunity" levels.

[debih]

The Pfizer vaccine has to be administered where it can be stored at minus 17 degrees which I’m pretty sure pharmacies wouldn’t be able to do and also had to be mixed before it is given, which had to be done by a clinician.

Also, our GP in the know has told us that as it is such a new vaccine (both the Pfizer and the Oxford) that are wanting to do them in a clinical setting so a crash team can be on site.


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[cromwell]

I did say help with the Oxford vaccine though Debih.
There is mention of "hubs" to give out the vaccine. My nearest hub looks to be in Manchester. Are these going to be the only vaccination sites??

[debih]

Around here they are using the small “cottage” hospitals as well as the big hospitals.

For the Oxford vaccine they are doing them within the GP surgeries, like they do the flu jab. We can do them there because we have the crash bag just in case it’s needed and also because of the storage.

I’m not sure what happens with the housebound - our community team are going out to give them the Oxford vaccine as soon as we have it but they don’t carry crash bags.


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[cromwell]

Thanks Debih.