Saxon Spires Practice

COVID-19 Update – 08 January 2021
 
Nearly 4000 vaccinations have been given and nearly all of those over 80 have been vaccinated and all care home staff in our area and residents of care homes have been vaccinated.
 
Shortly we will start to vaccinate the 75-80 year old age group and aim to have them all vaccinated as quickly as possible.  We have the capacity to vaccinate 3000 people per week.  The limiting factor at the moment is availability of the vaccine, not doctors and nurses to vaccinate.

COVID vaccinations will start to be available for eligible patients from week commencing 14 December. Due to the nature of the COVID vaccine, it is not currently possible for all practices to vaccinate their own patients, as we do for other conditions such as seasonal flu.

Phase 1 of the national vaccination programme is focused on the direct prevention of mortality and supporting the NHS and social care system. Patients have been prioritised into groups, starting with patients residing in care homes and patients aged over 80.

There will be one designated vaccination site for each Primary Care Network (PCN) grouping. The designated site for Saxon Spires patients to attend will be at Weedon Medical Practice.

You will appreciate this programme is being rolled out quickly and we are still working our the details, including awaiting to hear about the dates when the vaccinations will be delivered, and the appointment booking system we will use. This is the first time our practice has participated in a collaborative arrangement with other practices in this way, and we are working through all the practicalities as quickly as we can.

The decision about the priority order for which patients receive the vaccination first is made by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

You can read the full guidance on the prioritisation cohorts here.

We are taking bookings for our flu clinics on Saturday 5 December and Sunday 6 December. All eligible patients have been contacted via SMS text message and invited to book an appointment to get the vaccine.

We are dependent on securing supplies of the vaccine from the Department of Health and Social Care’s central stockpile of additional flu vaccines, and have secured enough stock to put these clinics on. Future clinics will be scheduled after we are able to order more supply, once we have used up the additional stocks.

We are working as hard as we can to get everyone who is eligible for a flu vaccine an appointment as soon as we can, within the restrictions placed on us by the rules of the scheme.

The HOPE programme (helping to overcome problems effectively) can help you to get more out of life.

HOPE is a licensed programme developed by Coventry University and Macmillan Cancer Support. It is an interactive, group based, self-management course which runs for 6 weeks with each session 2 hours.  The sessions are run by trained HOPE facilitators who are either health and social care professionals or trained volunteers who have had a cancer experience.

Read more about it and how to enrol here:

Please see the letter from Public Health Northamptonshire. We urge all carers to book into one of our many flu clinics to protect themselves and their loved ones from flu this winter.

We have multiple flu clinics running in the month of October- please call us to book your NHS flu jab ONLY if you fall into one of the following groups:

a. Eligible patients are those who are registered at the practice, who are:

i. aged 65 and over

ii. Diagnosed as pregnant

iii. aged six months to 64 years (inclusive) and defined as at-risk (See below for screenshots of the full list)

iv. locum GPs (to be vaccinated by the GP practice where they are
registered as a patient)

v. carers

vi. household contacts of an individual on the Shielded Patient List

vii. household contacts of immunocompromised individuals

viii.those in long-stay in residential or nursing homes or other long-stay
health or social care facility (NB WE WILL ARRANGE A HOME VISIT FOR THESE PATIENTS TO RECEIVE THEIR JAB)

ix. health and social care staff employed by a registered residential
care/nursing home or registered domiciliary care provider (to be
vaccinated by the GP practice where they are registered as a
patient) and;

x. health and care staff employed by a voluntary managed hospice
provider (to be vaccinated by the GP practice where they are
registered as a patient).

xi. health and social care workers employed through Direct Payments
and/or Personal Health Budgets (such as personal assistant) to
deliver domiciliary care to patients and service users (to be
vaccinated by the GP practice where they are registered as a
patient).

The programme may be further extended in November and December to include those in the 50-64 year old age group subject to vaccine supply and after existing eligible groups have been prioritised.

Here is the full list of which conditions quality patients for an NHS flu jab: