NHS staff now come after care homes for vaccine

[UnlimitedUnspecific]

The government have just changed their plans - now care homes will get the vaccine before the NHS, which in reality means instead of the NHS at this point since there are only 800,000 vaccines and 1.2 million people in care homes.

I am furious. The PPE provided to doctors and nurses doesn't properly protect them from the HUGE viral load of a patient ill enough to be hospitalised. Only yesterday the government admitted that the rate of Covid-19 infections caught INSIDE hospitals was far too high, and yet doctors and nurses will have to wait, what I expect will be weeks or months for a vaccination. In the meantime, their health and lives and those of their families, and those of other patients in hospital, other staff in hospital, people whose work takes them into hospital or transport workers serving hospitals - all at high risk.

(posted this on another thread already, but it will be lost in the comments)

Care homes can be shielded, NHS staff have a plastic pinny and a paper mask.

Well yes 95% is presumably largely ideal distribution. Not mass.
Re degradation of the vax. My dc had the cp vax. Dc 1 is incredibly difficult. Probably SEN. Would not be injected. The person was quite useless really and really dragged it out unlike nhs people. So ages after it was mixed dc still refusing and we gave that one to dc2. Fijally dc1 had it on a newly mixed vax.
Within a year dc2 had a rash about 5 dots 1 with cp look. (Had been near baby with it a week earlier). So very mild illness. But dc1 didnt get ill at all.

60% effective if it stops spread might be ok in a care home with staff vaxxed. And arent the people only getting mild illness?
But on a personal level with it so rife at the moment will 60% be enough for 70yo to be going to pubs?

@Char2015

The latest information going around now is there will be a small delay to care home residents receiving the vaccine so they can sort out logistical practicalities. Meaning no one will be receiving the vaccine for the next week or so as can't be seen to be going against priority list. However, senior staff believe it is being put off for as long as possible in order to await the Oxford vaccine which they believe will be approved next week so that this can be used in care homes instead. In which case there care homes will receive the Oxford and the Pfizer will be given to healthcare workers. The Oxford vaccine has already being produced in UK and will be a shorter turn around to get these delivered and ready to go out to care homes. Their are still high levels of concern here with the Pfizer vaccine being transported around the city to care homes. It's a changing situation here. No one, not even our Chief Executive, knows exactly how this is going to play out.

I think the plan is for the AZ Oxford vaccine to be produced in the UK in the future in a vaccination manufacturing plant currently being constructed, but I think the vaccine is currently being manufactured in India - which, ironically, due to Brexit will be easier to access from 1 Jan than Europe (were Pfizer vaccine is being made).

Your theory is interesting. I think it is the other way around though. The Pfizer vaccine is the only one likely to protect the very elderly, so they will give that to the elderly (even though it is a logistical nightmare) and the NHS (under 65s typically) will get the AZ Oxford vaccine if and when it is approved.

Wow, while posting that I missed the mother of all nasty bitchy posts.

@Char2015 I have absolutely no idea. But we are one of the largest hospitals in the country, so I'd expect so.

Ignore the nasty troll. Quoting their vile words just encourages vile people

@UnlimitedUnspecific

Ignore the nasty troll. Quoting their vile words just encourages vile people

Sorry OP, I really shouldn't have given them the attention

I have reported the post. The thread is mostly thankfully constructive, that kind of thing is just thoughtless nastiness

I think NHS frontline workers should get the vaccine first. Too many of us have lost colleagues to covid.

We risk our lives every day looking after covid patients without adequate PPE, I’m horrified the government has decided care homes come first!

@TheSunIsStillShining

I do work in a care home and I do our residents are suffering massively not just from Covid but from MH issues from being isolated. This is having a devastating effect on dementia sufferers especially.

If you ONLY have a limited supply do you really think a dementia patient is of more use to society and future well being of hundreds rather than the doctor in the ICU ward?

The harsh reality is that it should be an emotionless and NON POLITICAL decision. And from those povs care home residents should not be top of the list.
If there was a steady flow of vaccines than the discussion would be relevant. But there is not.
And, again feel free to flame me, but why give the 95% effective to those with a full life behind them and only a couple more to live? Wouldn't the frontline worker 3x need it more?
It feels that this decision on priorities is purely about optics.

It's like giving guns to grannies in the middle of england in ww2 and letting the troops in europe fight with play swords. It makes no sense.

We don't in this country make clinical decisions based on people's use to society, we make them based on clinical need. The priority list is based on risk to life from Covid, NOT usefulness to society, which is exactly as it should be.

[quote OverTheRubicon]@MarshaBradyo When you say the JCVI is non political and non emotional - are you sure? My concern is that they are trying to minimise number of covid deaths, because that is what makes the headlines, and not looking at the overall impact on years of life, as NICE would when considering treatments.

Noone should have to die of covid. I fully support everyone following guidance or beyond to protect the more vulnerable (one of my own children is one, and my parents and grandmother). But given that people will, we should also accept that a 40 year old health care worker in good health who dies is likely losing 40 years of life (and likely leaving young children without a parent), Vs eight elderly care home residents with dementia, all with life expectancies under 3 years and all of whom will be difficult for them and require tremendous care. My grandmother is in a care home and says she wants to refuse her vaccine and give it to my sister, who is a nurse, on this basis.[/quote]
Couldn't agree with this more. Earlier in the thread I was accused of not valuing the lives of care home residents- this is what happens when you dare to suggest that this whole shitty situation needs to be looked at from an overall perspective rather than 'stop every COVID death!'

No one wanted this to happen but I agree wholeheartedly we need to be thinking about the life years that will be lost if we delay in vaccinating the more vulnerable but younger age groups, the ECV 30 year old, the people in their 60s and 70s who are fit and well and who hopefully have a couple of decades more of life left. As well as potentially still putting themselves at risk by being at work and providing childcare.

I genuinely think this will be one of the many things we look back on with the pandemic and think wtf were we doing?

@Toddlerteaplease

I'm a peer vaccinator in my trust for flu jabs. I presumed that they would be using us to help deliver this one. Not a mention has been made if it.

Same, we have been given further online training to do and were told we would be starting on the 14th in our vaccination centre. The vaccines have been delivered today. We have been told a decision will be made early next week about whether this plan will go ahead or if they are able to vaccinate care home residents and staff instead. So not too long until we will know. I am not in England though, as I pointed out earlier a lot of posts on here relate to England I think rather than UK.

It has been said on this thread that no more batches of this vaccine will be coming, but that certainly isn't true in my part of the UK

Rainbow can you look more into the JCVI and read the minutes from their meetings before making assumptions?

You may find they have indeed looked at it from overall perspective. And no doubt they have the expertise to do so.

@UnlimitedUnspecific

The government have just changed their plans - now care homes will get the vaccine before the NHS, which in reality means instead of the NHS at this point since there are only 800,000 vaccines and 1.2 million people in care homes.

I am furious. The PPE provided to doctors and nurses doesn't properly protect them from the HUGE viral load of a patient ill enough to be hospitalised. Only yesterday the government admitted that the rate of Covid-19 infections caught INSIDE hospitals was far too high, and yet doctors and nurses will have to wait, what I expect will be weeks or months for a vaccination. In the meantime, their health and lives and those of their families, and those of other patients in hospital, other staff in hospital, people whose work takes them into hospital or transport workers serving hospitals - all at high risk.

(posted this on another thread already, but it will be lost in the comments)

Care homes can be shielded, NHS staff have a plastic pinny and a paper mask.

Wrong actually. As someone who works in a care home, that is all the Ppe I get. NHS staff working in hospitals get access to full ppe gowns and proper medical grade masks. Please get facts right first. Oh and the Government hasn’t changed their minds. It was always going to be care homes and staff first.

This is not a nice thread. People stating that they should be first. The reason its changed from care homes to NHS and then back to care homes is that there were issues with splitting the vaccine packs. I believe that has been resolved hence the change.

I wont quote the PP but its clearly me, me and me. Tbh - if the care homes are too difficult then please move on though Dont PLEASE get bogged down with distributing the vaccine and miss out the next on the list.

I will be waiting to be called up but I realise it wont be for a number of months yet.

@UnlimitedUnspecific

Your theory is interesting. I think it is the other way around though. The Pfizer vaccine is the only one likely to protect the very elderly, so they will give that to the elderly (even though it is a logistical nightmare) and the NHS (under 65s typically) will get the AZ Oxford vaccine if and when it is approved.

I agree with this. The more you can protect the elderly the better. However, if I have understood the results correctly, the Oxford vaccine did not see any hospitalisations even in the older group of participants. This still offers some hope that even though this group may get sick, it may not be to the point where they need hospital treatment and may prevent the worse case too. So the Oxford vaccine would still be suitable to use in the elderly.

Also need to consider when comparing the effectiveness that the Oxford trial was designed differently, the tested weekly and so picked up all very mild or asymptomatic cases whereas in the Pfizer and Moderna trials people were only tested when they displayed symptoms.

@unchienandalusia

Those in care homes are lost at risk of needing hospitalisation and of dying. Right they should go first. Hopefully NHS frontline workers not far behind.

I'm not liking this whose more important than who rhetoric I'm seeing here.

I agree completely with this. It’s not a competition and as previously said most likely both categories will get it together. I see all of a sudden people don’t care so much about granny getting Covid. Anyone who needs it will get it. The Oxford vaccine will most likely be approved soon and there is far more supply and access to that.

‘Nurses got pizza. What more do you want?’

This isn’t my view but was said by my mother.

*Wrong actually. As someone who works in a care home, that is all the Ppe I get. NHS staff working in hospitals get access to full ppe gowns and proper medical grade masks. Please get facts right first. Oh and the Government hasn’t changed their minds. It was always going to be care homes and staff first

Yes, until the U-turn yesterday, it was going to be care-homes and staff.
It was very unfair to tell the NHS yesterday they would be getting the vaccines administered next Tuesday, list the 53 hospitals that would be getting the vaccines, and then turn around and say, actually no, you are not. It is emotional torture.
That is not to say that care homes are very very deserving and do deserve to be top priority.

But you are wrong about PPE. The pictures of full surgical gowns and high grade FFP3 masks are a few very lucky ICUs. I promise you that the staff on the general 'cohort' Covid-19 wards have a pinny, paper mask and gloves to treat very infectious Covid-19 patients.

Sorry bold fail. First paragraph is quoted

It was cruel to tell nhs staff they’d get a vaccine next week and less than 24 hours later say they won’t.

@UnlimitedUnspecific yes emotional torture when staff already have very poor mental health.

We don't in this country make clinical decisions based on people's use to society, we make them based on clinical need. The priority list is based on risk to life from Covid, NOT usefulness to society, which is exactly as it should be.

This is true but not completely. We do use QALYs when deciding how much we want to spend saving someone's life. So we will spend much less saving the life of a pensioner who already has severe comorbidities than a healthy 50 year old, for example.

@Pomegranatespompom

It was cruel to tell nhs staff they’d get a vaccine next week and less than 24 hours later say they won’t.

It is definitely unfortunate if staff were promised the vaccine in England. Definitely not the case where I live

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-55157970