Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 13 January 2021
There are a number of questions in there—I will do my best.
The member asked how quickly we can go to 24 hours. We can do that once we have the mass vaccination sites open and running. Obviously, a 24-hour service is not possible in a GP practice or a community pharmacy. It is perhaps possible in local clinics, but it is certainly entirely possible at the mass vaccination sites. Many of those sites are secured already and I would anticipate that, as we move towards using them for the volume of people and the groups who we want to put through those sites and for whom that is convenient, that would be the end of February and early March. I can confirm the dates to Ms Lennon properly after this question session. If it is going to work for the volume of people, a 24-hour service is the right way to go. There is no will not to do that; the will is to do that if that is what it takes, because the objective is to get as many people vaccinated as possible.
As for the numbers and the figure of 400,000 vaccinations a week, that takes me to the modelling and to the numbers that I set out in the statement. The rate will be up to that number, depending on the mix of part-time and full-time staff, but we should remember that people are continuing to come forward to register as vaccinators, and the numbers are growing. We currently have enough, even at 400,000 vaccinations a week, but more people are coming forward, so I am confident that we will be able to cope. I should also mention the armed services and the volunteer hub that we are setting up, as well as the support staff.
The over-70s should start to hear something towards the end of this month and through into February, remembering that we are aiming to offer them their first appointment for vaccination by the middle of February.
For those who are at home, the identification of people who are housebound or are unable easily to get to a local vaccination centre or to their primary care practice will be done primarily by those at the primary care practice, who will know their patients—the patients whom district or community nurses visit, for example—and they will undertake that vaccination. It should absolutely be guaranteed that, if people need to be vaccinated at home, they will be vaccinated at home.
On the point about home carers and NHS staff, it should be the employers who contact people to ensure that they are being given appointments. Often, those appointments are in occupational health settings or in the larger vaccination sites—which were among the first things that we set up—but I am happy to take that point away and consider whether there are particular issues around the overall number of people we still have to vaccinate that we need to resolve. Home carers are harder to reach, in that they do not have a single employer, but I will happily take that point away and get back to Ms Lennon on what more we think we can do.