We are planning our vaccine dates for second doses of Oxford Vaccine at Hartland Surgery.
We amended dates on Tue 18 May 2021, after change of guidance and vaccine supply to enable 8 weeks interval between doses.
| First Dose at Hartland | Second Dose at Hartland (Amended) |
|---|---|
| Wed 3rd Feb Thu 12 Feb | Wed 28 Apr |
| Wed 17 Feb | Fri 7 May |
| Thu 25 Feb Fri 5 Mar Wed 10 Mar Fri 19 Mar * | Fri 21 May |
| Wed 31 Mar * Thu 1 Apr * | Wed 2 Jun |
* second dose date brought forwards to around 8 weeks
If you are aged 45 or above, you are now eligible for a vaccine, booked through the national booking website. You will be offered a choice of vaccine venues.
We will not be doing more “first doses” at Hartland Surgery. We will still be doing second doses up until the end of June for those who had the first dose at the surgery.
We still encourage everyone to get a vaccine, to get protected for themselves, and to prevent circulation of the virus in our community.
We currently have 1648 (59%) of our patients vaccinated (first dose) including 272 (10%) who are fully vaccinated (both doses).
We are now looking out for blood clots after the Oxford Vaccine (Astra-Zeneca), around 4 in every millions doses. There is more information in a government leaflet here
We are told these dont develop until after 4 days from the vaccine date (which is after the common 2-3 days of “flu-like” symptoms, which can include headache, temperature and feeling unwell).
There are no reports of clots after a second dose, so we have no concerns recommending the second vaccine dose, even where you felt unwell for 2-3 days afterwards, or are in the younger group of people.
What should I look out for after vaccination?
Although serious side effects are very rare, if you experience any of the following from around 4 days to 4 weeks after vaccination you should
seek medical advice urgently.
We have vaccine available, and a few of our patients are eligible but still not had their first dose. Overal 1534 (56%) of our patients have had a first dose of vaccine so far. This is actually 71% of those eligible, since a vaccine is currently recommended for those aged over 18.
We are therefore getting in touch with those not yet done to offer a catch up vaccine for Wednesday, please get in touch if you are waiting from groups 1-9 (Aged over 50, vulnerable, carers).
For those under 50, there is expected to be a delay through April while vaccine priority is on the second doses within 12 weeks to get maximum protection for those most at risk.
Regarding numbers, we have the following cohort sizes still needing vaccine, a total of 635
As we move to younger groups of patients, we are getting more questions regarding whether it would be a good idea to be vaccinated?
YES! 100% yes! Every member of our staff has been vaccinated.
What about pregnant women or children? We are waiting to confirm that vaccination is safe, but we will vaccinate our children if this is recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). They are the best in their field, whose expert advice we trust.
We had 190 doses of Oxford AstraZeneca Vaccine today, but as an unexpected bonus each 5mls vial contained 6mls of vaccine (12 doses not 10), meaning we actually had an extra 38 doses. We were warned these were definitely not going to be over-filled. We have therefore been making some last minute calls today to use all the vaccine and make sure none is wasted.
Almost every person aged 50+ or in an at risk group has now been offered a vaccine from the surgery, nearly 4 weeks ahead of schedule! What a great success.
We are told the next priority for vaccine will now be for completing the second doses before 12 weeks, and this is all fully on course. We will still be sending updates with just a short notice, when the supply of vaccine is confirmed.
This means there may be some weeks before those under 50 start getting invited, by the national booking system.
A big thank you for all your ongoing support (and patience as you await your turn).
We are sending out SMS invites for this Friday morning, working our way down the list based on age.
We dont yet know how many people have already booked an appointment through the central booking system (Westward Ho or Wadebridge) so when we invite you by SMS, please reply to the message if possible. Hopefully this is enough to reach all those aged 50 and above, as we expect a lot of the groups aged over 57 already have booked appointments.
For information, our group sizes and numbers vaccinated are as follows
We are also advised of another 100 doses expected for next week, so we can be really confident of finishing all the first 9 “at risk” groups next week.
We have requests asking when we may be able to offer vaccine to patients in their 50’s: we hope within the next 2 weeks as we have been promised a boost in vaccine supply after a “dry” couple of weeks.
This week we are not allowed to go beyong group 5 (aged 65-70) and group 6 (at risk). We are finshing all these groups Wednesday 10 March.
Next week we understand we will be able to use all available vaccine to start to “mop up” groups 7, 8 and 9. (ages 50-65). We will plan to move down ages, sending SMS invites to those aged 64, then 63, then 62 etc. As people confirm or decline a vaccine, we will re-use the slot until all our vaccine allowance is used, or we have completed all the groups.
We expect some people will have booked a vaccine elsewhere, but we hope anyone aged over 50 is likely to get a vaccine offer at Hartland within the next 2 weeks. But we cannot be 100% sure until the vaccine is waiting for collection from Barnstaple, we’ve been left waiting before.
We plan to invite by SMS message to your mobile as follows:
You are invited to have a COVID vaccine at Hartland surgery on <date> at <time>.
To confirm please reply YES.
If you want a call to discuss reply DISCUSS, if you have other arrangements reply OTHER, if you don’t want a vaccine reply NO. You can include more information if you choose, but a short message may be more helpful us.
If you dont respond within 2 hours, we will try to call you later
We hope this will allow us to organise larger numbers of vaccine in a quick and efficient manner.
We have been notified more vaccine was delivered to Barnstaple at the weekend.
We hope this means another 63 doses we can use at Hartland and if confirmed we will use them this week, likely on Friday morning again.
As mentioned before, we have been “warned” to expect a surge in vaccine supply next week for a couple of weeks – so we hope things may speed up significantly to complete all priority groups down to aged 50. Most supply is still being directed to the vaccine centres in Westward Ho and Wadebridge and invitations sent by post, but we will use as much as we are allocated.
Current numbers:
