Vaccine - unpaid carers

[Florelei]

Is anyone else having significant problems with their GPs? I am registered as a carer with them and asked them yesterday if I was included within group 6.

They said they wouldn’t be putting anyone forward as a carer in group 6 without either evidence of carer’s allowance or a carer’s passport from the council. I can’t claim carer’s allowance as my earnings are just over the threshold even though I only work part time.

I rang the council who didn’t know what I was talking about.

Has anyone else experienced this and does anyone have any tips?

Many thanks in advance.

@DinosaurDiana

You do not need to be in receipt of carer’s allowance. You just have to prove that the person you are caring for is.

No, this is also not true. Parent carers of children are also included in the priority 6 vaccination group. School-age children with disability/illness will not be in receipt of any benefit, but their parent carers are still eligible for the vaccine.

@SinkGirl

And the group 6 vaccine definition for carers has been changed now to include mental illness as well (in a letter sent directly to all GP surgeries last week) so not just the elderly and disabled any more, which reflects carers organisations definitions too.

According to that NHS England letter it’s for carers of those who are vulnerable to COVID, which is absolutely not what the government guidance says.

The definition sent last week to all GPs from the NHS was:

Those who are in receipt of a carer’s allowance, or those who are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person, someone who has a severe mental illness or whose welfare may be at risk if the carer falls ill

Apologies, my local trust is saying that you do. I assume then that all trusts aren’t.
If you read the Green Book it doesn’t say that you have to prove it.

Note the 'OR'

Not just those in receipt of carers allowance.

Please quote this definition if your GP/vaccine hub won't register you/vaccinate you.

@Bluebolt

I will be honest I have cried continuously since, not because of the vaccine for that I am past the point of giving a shit, but that my own GP (he made the decision) thinks I am using my child to push in. For that alone I will never be in the same room again with him. I would rather be ill and not seek treatment than speak to him.

I really feel for you we’ve had similar with flu vaccines in previous years made to feel like scroungers for wanting to be recognised as carers

@Bluebolt - you can change surgeries right now. You can register for a new one online and it should be set up in 2 working days.

So basically if you’re a carer you are at the mercy of your GP.
If you try to book on the big vaccination centre near us it states 65+ and CEV only, and that an appointment isn’t guarantee of a jab as you will be questioned when you arrive !

@SinkGirl

They have changed the wording! That NHSE letter says: “According to the JCVI and Public Health England Green Book, adult carers are “those who are eligible for a carer’s allowance, or those who are the sole or primary carer of an elderly or disabled person who is at increased risk of COVID-19 mortality and therefore clinically vulnerable”.

That is most definitely not what the green book said - there was a footnote about carers which is absent from the green book document linked in that letter.

They’ve shafted us, haven’t they? This is what government guidance says right now. They’ve moved the goalposts.

So does that mean if the person who you care for isn’t either in group 6 or above you won’t qualify?

That seems much narrower than the previous definition which referred to the disabled persons welfare being at risk if the carer fell ill.

Exactly - seems like shifting of goalposts to me

@SinkGirl - it looks like they have also updated the green book definition of what a carer is.

I’m a bit shocked about that, as it doesn’t appear to have been widely known.

The letter sent last week (not the one linked to in this thread, but last week's) had a whole page about adult carers. The message was that everyone who was a carer should be encouraged to register and that local organisations should also identifying people. The objective being to identify and vaccinate as many as possible.

A change to try to exclude people seems counter-productive given the overall aim of the vaccination programme is to vaccinate as many as possible as quickly as possible.

I am shocked too. I just realised, I’m not 100% sure that the previous definition was in the green book although I thought it was. It’s still live on the gov website though, here

www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-care-home-and-healthcare-settings-posters/covid-19-vaccination-first-phase-priority-groups?fbclid=IwAR083GV-Gb9vIAVhm7RJeFD1psDW927w7vHIqfURN_4Df7STkzGh-vO7K_Y

I thought the point was to ease potential pressure on social care by preventing carers becoming ill.

OMG, just read the updated version in the green book. I bet a lot of carers, esp those of children with SN will go now back to the queue. why am I not surprised. We get shafted time after time by this government.

Thank you to all that have mentioned me, the eligibility for carers remains the same for children, MRC/HRC. The change from receipt to eligible is important. The DLA should still be enough. I was begrudgingly added to carers code but only after a complaint. The unbelievable thing with DS is he has an alert for hospitals that he will need constant 2:1 supervision and a social services report that they have no suitable provision for his needs in county and would need to be housed by the NHS until a negative covid test and in classed extremely vulnerable. They surgery were still only concerned with proof of carers.

@DinosaurDiana

So basically if you’re a carer you are at the mercy of your GP. If you try to book on the big vaccination centre near us it states 65+ and CEV only, and that an appointment isn’t guarantee of a jab as you will be questioned when you arrive !

This is how my partner and son got Carers vaccines.....just booked to attend a hub via a local link then turned up on the day with ID and proof of my condition..... all very simple.....my partner is registered as my carer at go ( no careers allowance) but was quicker to get it 5is way.....my son has never registered as a carer....I am not in receipt of any benefits as I work full time.... should be this simple for everyone....sorry it’s not

I’m not sure about the impact of the revised wording, or how conscious a change it was. The old wording is still being used on info sent out recently to GPs, but I know they are still waiting for the Standard Operating Procedures to be updated....
My though is that the ways they will identify carers will be reasonably blunt tools, ie, benefits, Carers tag on file. The worry is for those of us whose gp refuse to add the Carers tag.
I really hope the gov isn’t stupid enough to do something that would exclude many Carers deliberately? Why bother including us and giving the reasons they gave in the first place?

The SOP is out, it says two routes to identify carers, Carers flag and DWP.
Here’s the link.....
www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/wp-content/uploads/sites/52/2021/02/C1150-next-steps-on-the-vaccination-programme-vaccinating-cohort-6-.pdf

We discussed it upthread - it also specifies carers of those who are vulnerable to COVID rather than those who would be vulnerable if their carer got sick. The new wording makes no sense since those who would be especially vulnerable to COVID will already have been vaccinated or will be in group 6.

It’s massively shit and I’m not at all surprised.

I haven’t slept properly since Friday. I’ve just been tossing and turning worrying about this.

It’s unnecessary stress. I hate being treated like I’m trying to obtain something I’m not entitled to. Life is rubbish enough without GPs putting further obstacles in your way.

I was basically put in group 4 by my gp ( husband is cev , but I am not ) but I am his carer . We both had the vaccine last week.

I know my surgery has me registered as a carer as I get the flu vaccine (and double checked with them a few weeks ago that I was down as a carer), but I haven’t heard from the yet about the vaccine as I’m waiting for them to contact me. Should I be contacting them now or wait to hear?

I’m an unpaid carer and I got my vaccine earlier this week. I’m noted as a carer at my GP and was automatically included in group 6.
I hope you all manage to get your practices to listen to you.

My GP surgery has an online form that you fill in if you're a carer (paid or otherwise). No proof required. I suppose this is open to abuse but I guess they can always check if needs be.

I am a carer (with CA) and my vaccine is booked for this week. All carers are eligible under group six was my understanding.

The problem seems to lie in that GPs never relied on carers assessment to code carers before and I don’t think they are expected to now, but some have took it upon themselves to use it as a blunt tool whereas others have used common sense, medical documents and knowledge of their patients.