Why do nhs admin staff need the vaccine before teachers?

[BrutusMcDogface]

Just that.

I really want to understand why someone who works in an office, away from any patients (and doesn’t even have to go through any corridors that patients will have gone through) get through vaccine, when teachers/school staff don’t?

Of course I don’t begrudge nhs staff their vaccine; absolutely on the contrary. But why aren’t teachers/school staff somewhere on the priority list? Particularly those who are working with children with SEND; all vulnerable, many of whom need personal care.

Please help me to understand.

Lessening the impact and therefore the time off is still a win on staffing.

Most people have at least 2 maybe 3 weeks off work if they are significantly ill so if they can be asymptomatic and limit that to 10 days then it still helps staffing.

NHS admin who work in hospitals I have no problem but there are a lot of admin who work for trusts who never enter hospitals.i would be very miffed if they are being prioritised.
When we had snow a few years ago we had a call from the Local Area Team to make sure our dental practice was open. You can imagine my reaction when the ‘jobs worth’ told me she was having to work from home because she lived on a hill. She actually lives in the city and within walking distance of her office, my staff and I all live and work rurally but managed to get into work as did most of our patients.
Most of the Local Area Team have been working from home since March and we haven’t heard from them since before Covid. Practices have been left to their own devices. Management have been lacking throughout further confirming how much better practices can run without the middle management.

Last week our department had 90% of admin staff off with either COVID or isolating due to close contact. The services can’t run without them. Not much good having a load of vaccinated staff and no appointments booked in or notes available etc.

@thefirstmrsrochester

Where my sister works, the clerks and admin were vaccinated ahead of patient facing staff because the consultants demanded it. It’s been rectified now as mass vaccination clinics have opened but entirely unreasonable to vaccinate clerical staff with minimal patient contact ahead of the nursing staff, and on the say so of the hospital consultants. And it wasn’t just left over vaccines at the end of the day being used, the clerical staff were invited for vaccine.

Hospital consultants did not determine the vaccination priorities. But you are, of course, completely right. It is a much better use of consultants, doctors, nurses and other medical staffs time filling in paperwork and doing bureaucracy (including, in many cases, organising the logistics of giving the vaccine) than, say, providing medical care to people who need it.

Plenty of NHS admin staff are in and out of clinic/treatment rooms/in contact with patient facing colleagues.

Agree that the logistics of vaccinating all staff on site makes sense, or would do for many trusts.

There is no perfect way of delivering all the vaccines 'fairly', it's too big an operation.

Twice in four days we have needed consultants secretary and admin so we can access appointments. Once for CV DD once for an appointment for me that I have been on the waiting list for 26 months.

I know someone who works from home, back office admin, no contact with patients and the admin is not even medical (it is pensions). They had the vaccine. Not their fault of course but I just do not understand why they should have been prioritised over a teacher, for example.

Social workers working with vulnerable children and families get it, teachers working with vulnerable children don’t. What’s that about?!

There is no perfect way of delivering all the vaccines 'fairly', it's too big an operation

Exactly

Much better to prioritise efficiency and no wastage than holding out for perfect ‘fairness’

Do people not read posts on threads anymore or is this just a good opportunity to showcase ignorance and whataboutery?

The reasons why NHS admin staff are receiving the vaccine before other cohorts has been eloquently and fairly explained plenty of times on this thread already.

@WinstonmissesXmas do teachers go into the family homes of the vulnerable children?

[quote nex18]@WinstonmissesXmas do teachers go into the family homes of the vulnerable children?[/quote]
Yes key teaching staff will

Personally I think it should go off how much time do they spend interacting in person with clinical staff. Many of my clinical customers have secretaries who they see multiple times a day.

There was an outbreak in their department and it affected both clinical and the admin staff. So if they do come into contact with clinical staff who interact with patients I think it's important to protect their patients.

Personally I think it should go off how much time do they spend interacting in person with clinical staff. Many of my clinical customers have secretaries who they see multiple times a day

So how would you administer that? Who is going to sit down and calculate who interacts with who and for how long, and then estimate the risk? Then produce a contact list in order of risk..

Will this come out of existing admin staff’s time? Overtime? Where’s your budget to pay someone to do this?

Or is it quicker, easier and cheaper just to vaccinate everybody?

They should put teachers on the standby lists for the end of the day Pfizer GP surgery ones.

They should put teachers on the standby lists for the end of the day Pfizer GP surgery ones

And again, how does that work? They tried it with testing, and the workplaces simply couldn’t access staff details and get the staff there.

They currently do this for workplaces where staff records can be accessed out of hours. The police is one, as they work in teams and someone can always access contact detail. The NHS can’t, because once HR goes home they have no access to personal phone numbers. Schools are likely the same past 5pm, if not sooner.

Everyone is coming up with all these “amazing” ideas, do you not think someone’s already tried that?

I'm not sure how they are going to vaccinate certain occupations other than NHS staff through their hospital trust. How do you determine that teachers can get a vaccine ahead of another under 50 year old? I doubt GPs have it on your record that you are a teacher and it would be unfeasible to go into schools to vaccinate teachers. Wil they just turn up with a letter of employment- that won't work as you need an appointment.
I'm not against teachers getting vaccinated above other groups but I just don't logistically see how it is feasible. Vaccinating all NHS staff on the other hand is easily managed through their NHS trust vaccination site.

I’ve been wfh but will get the vaccine soon - I do train staff a few times a week so I’m in the hospital wards and dealing with clinical staff. I also live with two other NHS staff.

We are all feeling guilty about getting vaccines because there is so much bitchiness about it.

I don't think it's bitchiness or resentment. I think those of us in people facing roles who come into contact with large amounts of people daily want to know that there's a plan in place to vaccinate them, just like NHS workers have had. This would allow us to enjoy our work without fearing contracting Covid. There were some mutterings from Zahawi today about teachers but that's all there has been.

Because it causes serious problems for the functioning of healthcare when whole teams of admin staff are off sick with covid.

@TheGreatWave

You need a blunt tool when trying to achieve mass rollout, anything else would add too much complication.

I agree. I find it really funny how some mumsnetters know better than PHE experts how to best roll out the vaccine programme. Some posters are so convinced of their opinions that maybe they should apply for the highly skilled roles at PHE rather than posting on MN.

Again, those who think everyone in a person facing role should be prioritised, can you explain why?

We don't yet know about the effects of the vaccine on transmission of Covid. So you could be a vaccinated teacher and still get and pass on Covid to your family and whoever else, same as now. Until we know more about this side of the vaccine, we have to work on the assumption that it does NOT STOP YOU GETTING AND TRANSMITTING THE VIRUS. It only prevents severe illness in X% of people. Therefore it's completely logical that the people who are at higher risk of getting severely ill (not necessarily those who are at more risk of catching it generally), get the vaccine first.

@JS87

I'm not sure how they are going to vaccinate certain occupations other than NHS staff through their hospital trust. How do you determine that teachers can get a vaccine ahead of another under 50 year old? I doubt GPs have it on your record that you are a teacher and it would be unfeasible to go into schools to vaccinate teachers. Wil they just turn up with a letter of employment- that won't work as you need an appointment. I'm not against teachers getting vaccinated above other groups but I just don't logistically see how it is feasible. Vaccinating all NHS staff on the other hand is easily managed through their NHS trust vaccination site.

Here there's some talk of doing it in schools (before pupils are back) Some schools (I suspect private) have volunteered and said they could do all the teachers in the area if given the vaccine supply.

Or vaccine centres could send an email to headteachers to distribute to their staff to register.

Do people not read posts on threads anymore?

Not as much as they should, because they think their opinion is so special that no-one else can possibly have thought of it even when they’re not posting until the thread is pages long.

So basically the vaccine personnel can spend all their time drawing up the very fairest list of where people should be in the vaccine queue (obviously using the opinions of Mumsnetters who by and large are woefully ignorant about how other people do their jobs), or they can put all their efforts into, you know, actually VACCINATING people even if a few groups get done out of turn.

I know which I’d prefer.