Over 70, Vaccination 'missing invite letter' - what can we do?

[theymissedmydad]

My dad is 73 and therefore in the top 4 priority groups. He lives with my mum in West Lothian, also 73, who has had a letter and had her jab, hooray. My dad hasn’t received his invite letter, and hasn’t had his jab.

He's completed and returned the ‘Missing Invitations Contact Form’ as directed on the NHS Scotland website but has had no further feedback from them.

They have both been round ALL of the phone numbers for the last week to try to find out why he’s not got a letter and just hitting brick walls.…. The GP can’t help because Lothian apparently used the electoral roll to send the letters. He’s on the electoral roll.

Has anyone else had this problem and been contacted after alerting NHS Scotland to the issue?
Does anyone on here work for the department that are supposed to be investigating these errors? How big is the team and what timescales are they working to?

What else can we do, other than wait for someone to call? I’m getting worried that they are slowing the rollout, and if he doesn’t get sorted in this wave, they’ll both have to wait months longer than they need to before they feel safe (mum won’t do anything without dad).

Nicola Sturgeon, as she was telling the world that they had ‘hit all their targets’ on the 15th Feb, asked those people in the eligible groups who hadn’t had a letter by then to ‘email her personally’, which my dad immediately did – he’s heard nothing from her office either.

In England, he’d have been able to just book himself an appointment via the central booking line, which would have recognised his eligibility.

He doesn’t want to just turn up at a vaccination centre and cause a fuss – as he’s been researching online, he’s been finding stories about people in worse situations than him who’ve been missed off too and, law abiding and fair as he’s been all his life, doesn’t want to ‘barge in front of someone more needy’…….

Just feel so helpless here – any advice or experience would be useful.
Thanks!

@theymissedmydad , sorry I've just seen you did get this resolved. I'll in for my unpaid carer vaccine next week so will ask the staff there if nothing has happened.

Can anyone explain why the SNP administration decided to use snail mail posted letters with fixed appointment dates, instead of the much more effective English online booking system, where you pick your own appointment time as soon as your sge group is eligible?
So far 60,000 appointments have been missed in Scotland due to letters arriving late or going astray. Pathetic.

Hi @Kerfuffled, I'm sorry to hear about your folks' situation.

In the event, my dad did receive a couple of calls with an invite, between speaking to the manager onsite and having his jab - he reckons they were in response to the (he estimates) 9 separate requests made by him/MP/MSP over the course of 2 weeks. He turned them down obviously, as he'd got the appointment sorted, but it shows the speed (or rather lack of) of response to this issue.

Emails to Nicola Sturgeon's office were eventually responded to after a month, with nothing but an attached, pre-prepared PDF statement giving statistics on how many people had had their jabs... utterly useless and actually quite insulting.

I think asking in person when you are there with people who can actually do something about it seems to be the best bet.
Good luck!

@theymissedmydad, Thanks for your reply. Hopefully I'll get somewhere this week. My parents are understandably getting quite upset about this and feeling very vulnerable now, especially as I go in daily to check on them and my kids are back school. I'll update the thread when something happens!

@Kerfuffled

OP, I know this was a few weeks ago but did this get resolved? I'm in a similar position with my parents who are 92 and 85 and being sent round in circles. I've contacted the MSP who is looking into it but still nothing is happening.

Terrible. What are the vaccination line saying about it?

@Kerfuffled what area do your parents live in? I'm in Lothian and the over 80s we're all done by the GP surgery. They were not part of mass vaccination so won't get a blue letter invite. I think that was the plan across Scotland but may be wrong. Have you rung their GP?

Not that this helps you OP, but I had a similar situation and the national helpline arranged an appointment within about three minutes. Just in case anyone reading this is alarmed - clearly the system does work in some cases.

@Babdoc

Can anyone explain why the SNP administration decided to use snail mail posted letters with fixed appointment dates, instead of the much more effective English online booking system, where you pick your own appointment time as soon as your sge group is eligible? So far 60,000 appointments have been missed in Scotland due to letters arriving late or going astray. Pathetic.

If you spilled your tea you'd blame it on the SNP.

@Kerfuffled similar situation for my mum in Lothian. She was not on NHS Lothian list so the helpline couldn't allocate her an appointment. She is registered at her GP but the information fell through a gap. She finally was allocated an appointment after calling 0300 790 6296 three times. They add you to a spreadsheet which gets handed to the vaccination appointment team once a week. It's archaic.

@StarryEyeSurprise @sootess @TheUndoingProject. We're in Dumfries and Galloway. The helpline can't help as they say they aren't on the database and to contact the GP. The GP surgery says contact the helpline. I'm going to ring the GP surgery tomorrow and just refuse to go away until something is sorted out.
@Sarcobaleno Thanks for that number, I might also try ringing that. I agree, the system is terrible, there is no one willing to take any responsibility.

Do you know his CHI number ? It’s on any letters he gets from the hospital or GP. Usually it’s his DOB plus another 4 numbers.

If you can find it, phone back the helpline and ask them to check under this number.

Some people are not actually missing from the system but the computer has them down as John Morrison instead of John Robert McFarlane Morrison.

But if your father was asked for his full name he would say “ John Robert McFarlane Morrison “ and then then say “ Nope we can’t find him”. And of course everyone with such a common name as John Morrison always gives their full names in situations like this.

But his CHI ( Community health index ) number should be unique.

The GP surgery should also be able to tell him if he can’t find it.