Bristol Uni students are being invited for their first Covid vaccine

[bevelino]

It appears that Bristol University have started messaging students to invite them for their first vaccination. One of my dds sent me a screenshot of the text as I thought she was joking. I haven’t had mine yet.

Ps my cv dd isn't at university so her drs (which obviously had vaccine for her) had a spare, this might have resulted in lots of spare at university health centres, but they should have offered it back to the ccg we are short here as we are full of retirees in my area (still Bristol ccg). Managed to get dd into Ashton gate thankfully

My daughter is at Bristol Uni and has had a text offering a vaccine. She does have an underlying health condition though. No one else she knows has been offered one.

Again - individual GP surgeries do not have vaccines so there is no chance that this is because they have "excess". It will almost certainly be because something in her notes is flagging her up as being eligible. The central system is flawed - for example lots of areas are reporting that it is reading "had an appointment with physiotherapist" as equivalent to someone being a physiotherapist (the latter obviously are entitled due to their job, the former are obviously not). Similarly sickle cell trait is being picked up as equivalent to sickle cell disease. There are lots of examples. We just have to trust that everyone is as honest and sensible as the op's daughter in checking why she was called.

The Bristol area are vaccinating group 6 and group 7 at the moment, so people receiving these texts must be those identified by their GP as having an underlying health condition.

Actually some individual GP surgeries do have vaccines and are carrying out vaccinations so don't generalise. As said above if there are surplus they will move on to their general population. OP, your DD should take the vaccination offered as if she is registered at the uni GP she is not "taking" it from an older person and by getting vaccinated is indeed protecting the public at large. If she doesn't have it the next student they offer it to will.

They truly don't. Everything is being done at PCN level. My practice is a vaccination site so many of our patients might think that we are vaccinating as a practice but we're not. Nowhere is - truly - the national spec doesn't allow for that. Some areas have more smaller sites and others have fewer larger sites (and then there are mass vacc sites separately) but there are no areas where individual practices have vaccines for "their own" patients. There is a lot of discussion about how to move towards this model for future years.
I disagree that someone should take the vaccine if offered. They should at least check why they've been offered. The amount of stress this is generating is huge with people who feel that they have been overlooked. For a non-vulnerable 20 year old to get the vaccine over a 45 year old with diabetes isn't right. (Luckily it's not going to be too long before most groups are done but I still think they should be done in order).

In Bristol students are encouraged to register with the University medical centre. Perhaps they are calling those they consider to be vulnerable. And perhaps they made a mistake. (Experience suggests they are not the most efficient.)

Our university has vaccinated the high risk courses; courses like medics, dentists, pharmacists, occupation therapists, speech therapists etc, courses where you have to have group participation or would be exposed to patients or hospitals. Is you dd not on one of those courses so although they aren’t employed by the nhs working within it is part of their training?

@Chilldonaldchill

They truly don't. Everything is being done at PCN level. My practice is a vaccination site so many of our patients might think that we are vaccinating as a practice but we're not. Nowhere is - truly - the national spec doesn't allow for that. Some areas have more smaller sites and others have fewer larger sites (and then there are mass vacc sites separately) but there are no areas where individual practices have vaccines for "their own" patients. There is a lot of discussion about how to move towards this model for future years. I disagree that someone should take the vaccine if offered. They should at least check why they've been offered. The amount of stress this is generating is huge with people who feel that they have been overlooked. For a non-vulnerable 20 year old to get the vaccine over a 45 year old with diabetes isn't right. (Luckily it's not going to be too long before most groups are done but I still think they should be done in order).

Well a close friend of mine works for a GP practice, a large one, and they definitely have their own vaccines for their own patients. She’s in charge of working through their patient lists and ringing people. It’s a federation of 4 or 5 smaller surgeries who always work together and they have a separate vaccination centre than the main CCG run centre. Their centre is only for their patients.

There is an article on this (not specifically Bristol Uni) in today's Guardian, but I can't attach a link.

The gist is that if incomplete information is held in your medical records, the algorithm is putting in default data on your BMI and ethnicity, which is resulting in some unexpected vaccination invitations being issued.

www.theguardian.com/society/2021/mar/09/scientists-question-nhs-algorithm-as-young-people-called-in-for-jab

“The messaging from GPs has been very much ‘don’t contact us, we’ll let you know when it’s your turn for the vaccine’. It felt like the path of least resistance was just to take it, to cause the least fuss.”

Well, with our surgery, the first half of the first sentence has been pretty much par for the course for the past 50-odd weeks now, so I have a certain sympathy with that viewpoint...

Yes my own GP Practice had its own vaccines for its own patients as did others in our small city location.

There are now some larger centres at shopping centres and similar set up in the area and the GP services are continuing with the 16-64 vulnerable groups but until the 56 age group was doing everyone registered at the surgery.

So it does differ region by region and I assume because of the nature of the med centre at Bristol they are working their way through their patient list.

And now my own GP surgery has a batch of vaccines tomorrow and are doing a one off vaccination clinic and have rung a small number of patients to go to the surgery.

I stand corrected in that case.
It's still not what the national spec says and I'm astonished that individual practices want to take it on when it's an absolute minefield of rules and regulations but obviously some areas are allowing this.