Did you request the vaccinator to aspirate?

[Namechanged4thi5]

I watched a Dr. John Campbell video where he goes into detail about how aspirating might reduce potential blood clots. So wondering if anyone requested this?

When I did the training. I was told you don't need to aspirate as it's not being injected near major blood vessels. (I'm a nurse.)
I would also not be impressed about being told how to do my job!

Honestly, how do people think we have got so many people jabbed?

Why are you saying this again?

As I said before, there were plenty of already trained HCP's and others willing to actually vaccinate. Speed was not the reason volunteers were used for this, cost was.

@Shanghaisprize

I'm a healthcare professional who's been working at the vaccine centres around my regular jobs.

To answer the OP's question - if you asked me to aspirate, I wouldn't do it. This is because it is not currently thought of as best practice (for several reasons), not advocated by NICE or any other professional bodies and not how we are trained to do it. One doctor's (highly questionable) assertions does not change that, and a patient's request doesn't trump my duty to follow guidance and protect my professional integrity.

Yes, lots of volunteers are giving vaccines. How else do you. Think it was rolled out so quickly?

Speed was never the issue - many HCP's were ready and willing and already trained. Cost was. The NHS like free, even at the expense of overall safety.

So someone with no medical knowledge possibly with an hour’s training will be giving out vaccines?

No

If you don't mind me asking @HeddaGarbled - what makes you so sure of that?

Absolutely! Couldn’t agree more. We used to call it ‘drawing back’, but that was when we mostly used the upper outer quadrant of the the flute to inject, or the vastus lateral is in the thigh. We haven’t used aspiration for a long time since the guidance changed, and never for these vaccines. A patient can ask for something, but as HCPs, we do not have to comply, we have our professional registration and safety protocols that trump some YouTube video.

Flute= Glute!

@zaffa

Ours are being done by our doctor's surgeries, so the vaccinators are the nurses and doctors from the surgeries in our town. I didn't know volunteers could administer the vaccine! (There are other volunteers there who do the admin and directing and such like though)

Volunteers can't administer the vaccine unless they are appropriately trained professionals.

Volunteers do the exciting jobs like crowd control and cleaning chairs!

Volunteers can administer with training in some UK settings under clinical supervision (make of that what you will). PCN stopping vaccinations when we've administered second doses here as government deliberately screwed over primary care. Now spending time planning for September boosters.

Don't envy schools if they have large scale injections to administer for children of parents who don't opt out. Cohort will be larger than other secondary school-administered vaccinations.

Routine aspiration discontinued though have seen assertion that CVST could be related to hitting a vessel hence vaccine migration. Haven't seen any evidence base for assertion.

Volunteers can't administer the vaccine unless they are appropriately trained professionals

That's not true. It varies between trust but generally Band 4 non HCP's who have done the training can do it, as do many SJA volunteers.

I've also come across GP admin staff who have been given 'the training' and are vaccinating. I won't lie - this concerns me, greatly.

@ajandjjmum

Volunteers can't administer the vaccine unless they are appropriately trained professionals.

Are you sure they need to be appropriately trained (health care) professionals? You might be surprised.

@Shanghaisprize,

Me too. You might be surprised we have HCPs unwilling to clinically supervise the non-HCP vaccinators. No fault of the vaccinators who, to a person, have seemed conscientious.

Nurse of over 30 years here. The guidance has been no need to aspirate for an intramuscular injection and hasn't been for a long time.
Had an update last month which reinforced this.

Volunteers can administer with training in some UK settings under clinical supervision (make of that what you will).

Yes, the 'clinical supervision' bit needs defining I think. It is rarely done under direct supervision. It concerns me that the majority of people getting vaccines ( understandably) assume that the person given them the vaccine is an HCP. The vast majority are not. To be fair, SJA are easily identifiable as volunteers by their 'uniform'. Not the case in many GP settings who are using their own non-medical staff.

Please stop listening to random, self professed “experts” on YouTube. The guidance followed by vaccinators (including volunteers) is prepared by the genuine experts.

It genuinely amazes me that there are people silly enough to watch a YouTube video and think they then know better than those who have a credible education and have been doing a job for many years.

I'm a trained HCP. I spent time training non health care people to vaccinate in December. They were all employed in paid positions.

At the centre I work in we have SJA volunteers carrying out vaccinations. They've been through the same training. Although they are volunteers, St Johns Ambulance are being paid as an organisation to provide the volunteers.

No one is trained to draw back any more. As someone above said it is not best practice.

.You might be surprised we have HCPs unwilling to clinically supervise the non-HCP vaccinators

@Zilla1 -

Sadly not, am one of them now, and for good reason. As you say though, not the fault of any volunteers.

A dentist did my vaccine, but all staff at the centre were trained hcp. She did not draw back. I’m a nurse - paeds and wasn’t taught to do that with IM, although it’s rare to give an im injection to a child. I do give myself an im injection and never draw back. Never had an issue.

@Shanghaisprize

in which case apologies and I'm not surprised.

We're stopping our PCN programme after several Government decisions sabotaged it though almost half wanted to carry on regardless. Good luck, Massvac. Still, we realise we're lucky to have a job, Lord Bethell.

Roll on September booster programme and QOF.

Yet noone has stated why they stopped doing it this way? Anyone know?

@neveradullmoment99

Yet noone has stated why they stopped doing it this way? Anyone know?

Because there are no large blood vessels in the three recommended injection sites.

IM in the bum isn't recommended (unless it’s the only site that can be used for the medication) because of the surrounding large blood vessels and nerves.

Aspirating can also cause pain in some people and people who do aspirate don’t tend to do it for as long is recommended (5-10 seconds), so there’s really no additional benefit to aspirating if it’s only a quick 1-2 second aspirate.

It’s faster and less painful to inject straight away rather than aspirate for 5-10 seconds and then inject.

@LeaveHomeNow

"medical professionals"

The guy doing my jab looked like a volunteer who had never had medical training, he couldn't have been more awkward with what he was doing. I was expecting the usual alcohol wipe on the skin but nope, just a very awkward wrestle to open the packaging - shuffling between how he was going to do it and unsure entry into arm.

I assumed most were volunteers??

We don't use alcohol wipes on the skin first, unless the patients skin is visibly dirty

@frumpety

Mine did , but she was an older nurse who like me probably still routinely aspirates for IM injections, I have never aspirated blood though and it is quite a rare occurence for it to happen.

Aspiration is no longer recommended. The only exception is Nebido injections

Yet noone has stated why they stopped doing it this way? Anyone know?

In short, because there is no evidence that it is necessary or beneficial, and because it is thought to increase the pain and trauma involved.

@Orangelover

I'm a nurse and I was taught to aspirate when giving an IM injection purely to check for blood to avoid accidentally administering into a vein. However I do it so quickly that I doubt the patient notices.

This is no longer current practice

@Anonaymoose

I'm a vet nurse and we frequently use the intramuscular route. Always always aspirate, and of course it's to ensure you're not about to inject directly into the blood stream. Vaccinators absolutely should be doing this.

Incorrect. Different for humans

@takemetomars a lot of the IM injections I give are into people who are elderly, so the muscle mass is generally much smaller, would you be confident doing an IM injection into someone who is cachexic without aspirating ? A nice plump 40 year old muscle versus a 87 yr old with COPD ? I thought at the heart of all nursing models was the idea of individualised assessment or are we going back to purely task based nursing ?

frumpety - AFAIK, aspirating during an IM isn't forbidden by any guidelines, it is just advised that it is usually not necessary, especially during a vaccine in the deltoid. Even though I don't routinely aspirate, I would if I needed to an could justify why (eg, a patient with cachexia). I wouldn't want nursing to return to being purely task based either.