Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust (SCFT) have said they are working to ensure “all care homes in Crowborough are visited within the next few days”.
The response is to a Tweet from an angry son whose father is living in a care home in Crowborough:
The NHS is working extremely hard to get the vaccine to everyone who is eligible as quickly as possible. As of yesterday nearly 5 million people get first vaccine dose in the UK and ½ million have also had their second dose. The people who have received vaccinations is now reported daily on the Government’s Covid-19 statistics website.
The Government have said they are on track to hit its target of inoculating 13.9 million people by mid-February.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation advised older residents in care homes and staff should be the “highest priority” for vaccination given the increased risk of outbreaks and death in these closed settings. They advised that the “vaccination of residents and staff at the same time is considered to be a highly efficient strategy within a mass vaccination programme with the greatest potential impact”. The Sussex Health and Care Partnership have said they are working to vaccinate all over 80s in Sussex by the middle of February.
A spokesperson for Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust said:
We are supporting GPs to ensure that care home residents and staff across Sussex get vaccinations at the earliest opportunity.
Clinical guidance is very clear in stating that the COVID-19 vaccination cannot be given to people who are currently ill with COVID-19 or who have tested positive within the last 28 days. Instead, the vaccine needs to be given to people when they are well and 28 days after a positive test.
Together with GPs we are visiting all care homes as quickly as we can, even ones where residents or staff have tested positive for COVID-19, to ensure the vaccine is given to staff and residents in the home who are negative. We will return to the homes to administer the vaccine to people who might have been unwell or tested positive during our initial visit.
We are working towards ensuring that all care homes in Crowborough are visited within the next few days.
Sussex Community NHS Foundation Trust
The priority list for vaccinations is as follows:
- Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
- All those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers
- All those 75 years of age and over
- All those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals
- All those 65 years of age and over
- All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions, which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality
Well, let’s hope that the complainant’s father, and others in care homes who are under severe threat of catching Covid or who already have it and can’t be vaccinated, don’t die in the meantime.