How are prison populations vacinated?

[Oldowl]

Just being curious/nosy!

Is it done en-mass like a care home? Or by age/clinical need like the general population?

Is it being carried out by the prison medical staff or by NHS vacinators?

I imagine Cat A prisons are a lot different to open prisons or Young Offender Institutions (do they still exist?).

It's dealt with by the normal medical staff who look after "detained estates" and managed similarly to GP based vaccinations. Vaccinations have actually been in age order aligned to the general population, though given the communal living situation and the low volumes required (compared to expected high times for getting in and out of a prison) it would make more sense to me if they had just done a blanket offering in prisons early on.

We sent a team from our mass vaccination centre into a local prison.

They are being done in line with community

In fact they’re a bit behind and most currently doing late 40s

It’s done by the prison healthcare team based permanently in each prison

Thanks.

Is the uptake of the vaccine good in the prison population?

Like the general population. In the same order of clinical priority groups and age.

Done by prison healthcare staff on top of their normal jobs.

In some prisons there is a large elderly population and so this is a considerable number.

Vaccinating prisons has been a political football - they have been outbreak sites with deaths, lots of people living together in close quarters. However there were also press reports of 'notorious prisoner has had vaccine' which obviously upset people if he had had it before their gran.

Ideally prisons and prison staff would have been a priority group like care homes.

They really should have been done en-masse as a high risk environment, plus catch-ups as needed as the internal populations change.

The nearby open prison has had several major outbreaks with some community leakage. Many prisoners have vulnerable health due to their difficult backgrounds compared to the wider population.
As a public health issue, avoiding high risk hot spots is important for the wider community.

I don't understand why places with a lot of people living in close accommodation, such as prisons and armed forces, weren't a priority.

Wow, I agree they should have been a priority group as high risk. How can you possibly social distance in a prison with very basic hygiene standards and little natural ventilation??

Are you allowed to refuse the vaccination if you are in prison? I heard somewhere that the flu vaccination was given to everyone.

I would have thought that it would be medically sensible (due to lots of people living in crowded conditions) and the most efficient use of staff time, to simply send in a handful of staff and do everyone on the same day - rather than fannying about with travel time, set up and pack down, and so on on multiple different days.

But these things are rarely done in a logical manner.

They weren’t even allowed to use the left over vaccines on staff, because they were afraid of repercussions.

I’m really shocked and angry that prisons weren’t prioritised and all detained and working offered early vaccinations irrespective of age. Bloody hell you’d think we were back in the 19th century sometimes in this country.

It's a political hot potato. As said, they're doing them online with the national age groups.

I imagine this is to stop claims of prisoners getting priority over public.

Howeber, with a husband who works in one, I'd much rather they treated it in the same way as mass residential accommodation and done staff and prisoner's lives much earlier on.

Regardless of the prisoners, doing this would have saved many more lives in the staff and community population.

@MissGendered

Are you allowed to refuse the vaccination if you are in prison? I heard somewhere that the flu vaccination was given to everyone.

Of course they are. The flu vaccine will be offered to everyone, not forced on everyone.

@BogRollBOGOF

They really should have been done en-masse as a high risk environment, plus catch-ups as needed as the internal populations change.

The nearby open prison has had several major outbreaks with some community leakage. Many prisoners have vulnerable health due to their difficult backgrounds compared to the wider population.
As a public health issue, avoiding high risk hot spots is important for the wider community.

I agree - but also many of the victims of prisoner crimes should have been prioritised and they weren't.

Women's refuges and homeless accommodation. Like prisons, communal living, close quarters, transient so lots of new potentially infected people coming in - and difficult lives that make underlying conditions (including undiagnosed) more likely (sometimes as a direct result of abuse and trauma).

I think all communal living environments should have been prioritised, including prisons, but although I disagree with the political football thing, I understand it.

What I don't understand is why victims of crime were also ignored for prioritisation despite being higher risk? Where's the political football with them?

Yes I know eventually the government said homeless people were priority (very late in the vaccinating stage) - but it seems like it was just PR. On the ground there was little organisation or knowledge and there was definitely a postcode lottery. No one went into refuges to mass vaccine the women there. I think some hostels were done that way (which suggests vulnerable female victims of crime were seen as a lower priority than mainly male hostel residents?).

Some areas are only now offering services to get homeless vaccinated. In parts of London there's a vaccine taxi to take people for jabs. These people should've been done ages ago.

@DeathByWalkies

I would have thought that it would be medically sensible (due to lots of people living in crowded conditions) and the most efficient use of staff time, to simply send in a handful of staff and do everyone on the same day - rather than fannying about with travel time, set up and pack down, and so on on multiple different days.

But these things are rarely done in a logical manner.

Likewise victims of crime, i.e. women's refuges. They can also be crowded and are communal living, lots of coming and going, and with residents who commonly have underlying conditions (sometimes undiagnosed). There's also lots of children living in them - and we know children can be vectors.