drop-in covid vaccination clinics [edited at OP's request]

[GiantWingedWaspMoth]

There are mass drop in clinics starting tomorrow (the one at the gyle started today and was very efficient)

www.nhslothian.scot/Coronavirus/Vaccine/Pages/Drop-in-Clinics.aspx

[edited by MNHQ at OP's request]

(I'm posting because I don't think it has been widely publicised. Apologies if people think it's inappropriate)

Also available for any over 40's needing their first or second dose (if 8 weeks since the first)!

The link no longer works. This is the updated one

www.nhslothian.scot/Coronavirus/Vaccine/Pages/Drop-in-Clinics.aspx

Bumping

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Drop in clinics in Forth Valley too.

Here's a link

@LizzieMacQueen

Drop in clinics in Forth Valley too.

Here's a link

Brilliant!

If anyone knows of other areas with drop in vaccination clinics, please add them here!

Lanarkshire too, a few local destinations and the super centres in Ravenscraig Motherwell and Ally McCoist in East Kilbride.

Reports suggest the Lothian ones have been quiet today, people have in n out in minutes :)

My DS has his appointment next week anyway so hasn't gone to the drop in in FV. They spent most of the adverts for it saying it was for over 40s only. Then suddenly changed it to include over 18s, by that point it didn't seem worth going when he has an appointment a week later.

I'm glad they are happening but it's a bit of a shambles as usual.

Not blaming the staff, just that SG doesn't seem able to plan ahead or have appropriate strategies in place for the demographics in advance.

Only AZ for over 40s though. They are using up their stores despite the collateral damage along the way

@Roonerspismed

Only AZ for over 40s though. They are using up their stores despite the collateral damage along the way

Some interesting research suggests that the voting may be related to the vaccine going on the vein rather than the muscle, and if that's the case it's very easy to check. But the protocol is not to aspirate before injecting the vaccine.

I think this needs to be changed asap. One way charge could save lives. More info here

I wish that they would lower the age eligible to over 16s. These kids may be leaving school - and home - for further education in the coming months and will be at risk of catching and spreading as they move about the country. In Scotland loads of people head off to uni at 17: the English school leavers are usually older

Not blaming the staff, just that SG doesn't seem able to plan ahead or have appropriate strategies in place for the demographics in advance

To be fair, it's the biggest medical issue they've ever faced, they are dealing with vaccine supplies not being consistent (through no fault of their own) and they are having to manage ensuring people get the same kind of vaccine that they had previously within a narrow time frame.

This is no small feat. And the UK have vaccinated a higher percentage of the population than almost anywhere else in the world. There are, I believe, only two countries that have done better with their vaccination programmes, one of which has a population of 360,000 people, the other has less than 40 million.

@ElephantOfRisk

My DS has his appointment next week anyway so hasn't gone to the drop in in FV. They spent most of the adverts for it saying it was for over 40s only. Then suddenly changed it to include over 18s, by that point it didn't seem worth going when he has an appointment a week later.

I'm glad they are happening but it's a bit of a shambles as usual.

Not blaming the staff, just that SG doesn't seem able to plan ahead or have appropriate strategies in place for the demographics in advance.

I retesting to read this POV. I feel it's been quite a successful vaccine rollout. What is your issue with the demographics? It seems to me that they've been working through the ages which is pretty sensible?

What would you have had them do differently?

Interesting not I retesting 🙄

It's not the order., it's the fact that the strategy of sending letters with fixed appointments to a more mobile and less flexible cohort was wrong and led to lots of missed appointments. The ability to register and select appointments or have age specific drop ins should have happened sooner. We wasted capacity imo.

It would also have been useful if it had been easier for the younger groups to be able to move across health boards, this would have made it easier for students or people working in a different health board from where they lived. I believe some of that is possible now but would have helped lots of people.

I get the feeling it wouldn't matter what they did, people would complain.

This is a brand new situation. Surely it's better to start at a level that you know you can manage, and then scale up? If they'd have started with a drop in clinic then the potential early on for logistical issues would have been far greater.

The UK has undoubtedly got one of the most successful vaccination programmes in the world. I think the reason the SG gets stick for their strategy is that we can see a more sensible strategy just across the border in England. The SG vaccine strategy seems to have been to piggy back on the existing letter system and there seems to have been little thought into how well this would work for all demographics. Maybe they didn't have the capacity to brainstorm this 'properly' which makes me wonder what exactly we've gained by doing our own thing (apart from getting to pretend that we're a completely separate country). I am definitely starting to believe that one UK wide strategy for distribution (as there was for aquisition) would have served us better.

I think a lot of it is down to the local health boards decisions, rather than the SG.

For example, Shetland didn't send letters. They phoned people to make appointments, and had a big campaign to let people know they were doing it and what age groups they were targeting so that people knew to answer calls from witheld numbers.

Now granted, they have a much smaller population than most health board areas. But the decision to operate that way was clearly made by the health board, not the SG.

@GiantWingedWaspMoth

I get the feeling it wouldn't matter what they did, people would complain.

This is a brand new situation. Surely it's better to start at a level that you know you can manage, and then scale up? If they'd have started with a drop in clinic then the potential early on for logistical issues would have been far greater.

Absolutely.

I've never known anyone be unable to reschedule an appointment to their convenience.

@ElephantOfRisk seems to be suggesting that the whole thing is a 'shambles' because people can't book an appointment in a different health board if I'm reading it correctly. Some people really have unrealistic expectations I think.

@ElephantOfRisk seems to be suggesting that the whole thing is a 'shambles' because people can't book an appointment in a different health board if I'm reading it correctly

It is possible to do that by phoning the telephone helpline. I'm not sure if it always was, but it's useful for students that could be at an address other than the one they are registered at, and for people that have moved between vaccinations.

The helpline have been brilliant I think. They e done really well. My partner was also able to make a cross health board boundary appointment because we had recently moved. No proof or anything needed.

Some people just love a non about anything.

Not a non. A moan 🙈

Sigh - no that's not what I said and i also didn't say the whole thing was a shambles but whatevs. Nice to see you back....

And no, it wasn't always possible and it is good that it now is. The point I was making is that they didn't have an appropriate strategy in place in time to deal with the younger cohorts and then seemed surprised that there were a lot of missed appointments.

Most people on here could see that coming but SG/HBs not so much.