COVID vaccine - a plea from NHS staff

[Bleepertybleep]

Just had this message from a friend

Please make sure you and your Family all dig out your NHS number and have a copy of it immediately to hand for when you or they are called for a covid jab. From my colleagues having this number to hand really speeds up being able to administer the vaccine to as many people as possible.

You can find your NHS number on any NHS correspondence or through your patient access to your GP website.

It would be really helpful if you could share this message with friends and family.

How bizarre. How many people have NHS correspondence lying around? I think I only get things like reminders for smears and well-woman clinics, the sort of thing that gets binned as soon as I have booked in. And I really hope my GP's website doesn't list patient names and NHS numbers.

It’s really easy to pull up on the NHS spine with name, dob and postcode. It might save a few seconds but no NHS number shouldn’t be a problem if you know these instead.

@Angrymum22

It may be to stop people travelling to the UK to have the vaccine. A lot of countries are going to be months behind us.

People are being invited for the vaccine. identified in order of priority via NHS GP registers or NHS staff lists.

Vaccine tourism is not a thing.

Any admin steps that can be saved will make the whole process more time efficient. You should know your NHS number, national insurance number and DL and passport number and have them saved somewhere securely as a matter of course ? From a life admin point of view if nothing else .

Please be careful sharing this. It's leading to people phoning up asking for their NHS number which is really not helpful at the moment. If you have it, take it - but it's not an absolute requirement.

It was asked for on the on line booking form and again on attendance- maybe as my colleagues and I were getting at a local trust rather than at our own GPs.

I imagine it makes it easier to communicate to your GP so you don't get offered again? It's no big deal. My GP surgery won't give them out but they are on every prescription. its the ten digit number. NI number was also requested

Does anyone know if there is going to be some sort of online system for booking vaccines, perhaps if/when they offer to under 50s? Just can't imagine GPs having the resources to contact healthy under 50s to offer and book them in for vaccines. Lots of under 50s not registered with GPs either.

We booked ours on line (Community Care Employer)

It's a bit of an urban myth going round SM.

It's a hoax. No need for it.

I'm HCP and when booked I had to give my nhs number, birthday, address. Only thing didn't ask was shoe size.
I'm booked in for Monday. We have a ticket with a QR (?) code on that will be scanned.
My be different depending on trust 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is clearly not the case everywhere. I do wish that people wouldn't post this stuff, which is not the case in other health authorities (or indeed even gp practices) and which actually just makes the very elderly panic because even sorting out information like this can be very difficult for an old person, especially one with dementia.
In our area, my mother simply received a phonecall telling her the date, day, time and place of the appointment. She was asked no questions, and I simply took her in and she confirmed her name. It was done within about 30 seconds.

Just out of interest, whether you need to take it with you or not, I had this message on Facebook and looked mine out. I found 2 NHS numbers. One is a mixture of letters and numbers (was on a card issued when I registered with the GP) and another was just numbers (on my online details with GP). Which one is correct? Or are they both used but for different things.

@ConcernedAuntie it’s 10 figure number, set out as 3 numbers, 3 numbers, 4 numbers (such as 123 456 7890). The other one will be your local identifier like a hospital number.

When i booked a covid test i was asked for my nhs number. I picked a letter from hospital out of my filing and copied it from there. Invalid - the hospital letter had got it wrong.

It was correct on a separate letter!

Surely the person who phones up to make the appointment already knows your name and phone number, which they presumably gets from your GP/NHS database that should also contain your NHS number?

@MeringueCloud

Surely the person who phones up to make the appointment already knows your name and phone number, which they presumably gets from your GP/NHS database that should also contain your NHS number?

Yes, that's what I think. If you are ringing them then possibly understandable but not if they ring you-they'll have it. I would have to have a serious rummage to find mine.

It will be to ensure it is correctly recorded on your medical records - your NHS number is unique, but your initial surname and address may not be unique.
So they know who to contact for the next round of vaccines, or for the second dose, or to be able to issue you for your vaccine passport for your summer hols abroad.

I had better tell my parents as they had their first jab with no mention of it. They are going for the 2nd in three weeks so i am guessing all is in order with their medical records...

The form you fill in at a pharmacy for an NHS flu jab asks for your NHS number, but it doesn't matter if you leave it blank as they will find you from the other info on the form.

It's quicker and easier to locate by number, so it is worth making a record of yours. You'll only ever need it occasionally, but when you do it's jolly handy.

Also worth knowing your hospital number (will be different for each hospital trust you have dealings with) and that is extremely useful , especially if you are under more than one team

I understand it's because the vaccination is initially recorded on Pinnacle which is the pharmacy database and then gets electronically transferred to your GP records.
I suppose it's easier to search for an NHS number than a name or DOB.
If you have your NHS number to hand then take it but it's not a deal breaker.

@luckylavender

It's a hoax. No need for it.

It's really not a hoax. Where recipients are getting the jab through an on line booking portal - usually via their employer- at a local Trust or Vaccination centre, it is asked for. Presumably to make it easier to cascade that information back to their GPs. But No one would be turned away without it.

For people getting sent to their own GP - or a local GP Hub, it won't be necessary as the patient records would be updated directly.

We haven't even had this message given to staff in the hospital I work in.

@Hobbesmanc perhaps not a hoax per se but no one needs to provide it for the vaccination in any setting.

Our trust require it to book your vaccine as a member of staff so it's incorrect to say 'no one needs it'