Yes, and another letter was released yesterday too emphasising again that rollout to under 50s was not to start until they were told to do so. The focus was to be 2nd doses and GPs starting to follow up over 50s who hadn’t booked via national system. Sounded like National Sysytem and mass centres wouldn’t be offering 1st jabs much over the next couple of weeks.
They were also closing the unpaid Carer loophole. If you look on national booking site, you can see there’s no longer the option to book there but people are told to go via GP. Too many people were lying and as ID wasn’t needed it was just too easy. Now the GP surgery will quiz people a bit more before booking unpaid carers.
So it’s interesting that people are still getting called who are under 50. Seems to me that they are called pretty short notice rather than booking 2 weeks ahead. GPs are told not to waste vaccine though too and there is some limited scope for discretion if they have made big efforts to reach earlier cohorts several times. Lots of GPs have done this to the nth degree, so I’m sure the sensible ones just get one and invite the upper 40s if they have some still. Clearly it’s the right thing to do. The worst thing would be if GPs were sitting on vaccine and it then got binned because they were scared of being in trouble by offering to upper 40s.
The variety I think comes from demographic differences in areas but also efficiency differences. Some are very very proactive in pushing ahead and active within their PCNs in terms of getting their patients into the vaccine lists for their local areas, but others less so. You can see it too in their communication via websites or Facebook, that some are pushing ahead and others trailing a bit more. I guess some have more resources and manpower to put into managing the lists and calling people up for last minute appointments. Patients at those surgeries get the calls and those who are much more pressed might have to wait for national rollout.
My DH - 49 was done this week. No word locally, so he rang the nearby pharmacy who are jabbing at 5.30 to ask if he could go on reserve list and pointed out he was 49 and could be there in 5 mins. They were closing at 6 and had one spare dose and were glad to hear from him. We were there in 7 mins and home within 25 mins of having phoned.
It’s worth calling the pharmacies near you that are jabbing if you can get there fast. If you enquire ‘on the off chance’ at the end of the day and ask to go on a list, even if it doesn’t come off today, you might find that in the next week or so, they suddenly have no-shows and you get a call near closing time. Worth trying I think. Take ID just in case, but they find your records on the system. The closer to 50 you are the more it’s likely that you will be out in reserve lists or be picked for spare doses. Clearly if there are no spares, you won’t be getting it.