Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 23 March 2021
First, I say, as I have done already today, that I think not only of those who have lost their lives to Covid in the past year, and their grieving families, but of everyone who has lost their life over the past year, and those who are missing and grieving them. The past year, with all the difficulties and challenges that it has thrown up, has affected people in a multitude of ways, and it is important that we remember, and reflect on, that today.
The vaccination programme is progressing extremely well. If I cast my mind back to the turn of this year, I recall that I was optimistic about the speed and scale of the roll-out of vaccination, but I think that I would have been sceptical if anyone had told me then that we would have reached quite as many people as we have now. I put on record today my thanks to everybody in the central team and all the vaccinators and teams across the country who are responsible for that success.
When we implement a programme of this scale, and at this speed, it is inevitable that there will be glitches and things that do not go as well as we want. That is true of the scheduling, printing and posting of letters that are associated with the programme. We are aware of issues with the delivery of appointment letters in the early part of last week. With NHS National Services Scotland and Royal Mail, we are still trying to understand all the details of that issue, but I have been given an assurance that it has been resolved. Around 60,000 appointments were not attended last week and I apologise to anybody who has been affected.
We closely monitor day-to-day uptake versus projections and try to understand the reasons why people might not be attending appointments. This past week, that undoubtedly would have been partly down to the issue with letters, but there are other issues as well. Although these concerns have not materialised, we were concerned last week about the impact that the publicity around the Astra-Zeneca vaccine might have. We are working on those issues all the time to ensure that people are coming forward for appointments and are supported to do so.
The process to rebook any appointments that were not attended last week is under way and that will be done as quickly as possible. People are able to telephone the helpline on 0800 030 8013 if they have any issues on which they wish advice or support.