COVID Vaccine !

[Rocky]

As someone whose job is basically telling other people what to do and thinking about risk - I want them to know what to do themselves. Even if what you want them to do is "call the supervisor, or failing that ask someone else". You cannot rely on a supervisor to be available whenever something goes wrong, and it's dangerous in a situation where there are vulnerable people who might die to rely on individuals making their own decisions on the spur of the moment in a crisis. Everyone needs to have the same response to the crisis - and when you're through-processing thousands of elderly people, some of whom will be sick and highly infectious, and jabbing them with a vaccine where there will be very occasional adverse reactions, there will definitely be crises.

I'm afraid that goes as much for respected professors of public health with a lifetime of GPing behind them as much as it does for someone straight out of college.

I don't disagree with any of that but the issue is providing bits of evidence that supposedly demonstrate that you understand about radicalisation etc etc. If you are a clinician, that evidence is ready at hand and will be part of your CPD portfolio. Retired clinicians and those not seeing patients will not have them.

The reality of these vaccination clinics is there's a row of vaccinators whose job is to get the individual to roll up their sleeve, ask them about allergies and then stick a needle in their arm. Someone else then monitors the patient for signs of anaphylactic reaction. The whole clinic is supervised by someone taking names at the door and directing patients to each station.

Yes, all those issues are important but the key thing is to be able to give a jab competently. The other tasks can be done by someone else...and in reality are.

 

[accountantpete]

Staff may potentially be evacuating patients in the event of a fire. You need to know the system, it's not as simple as just leaving the building and nursing staff don't need a load of volunteers who don't know what they're doing, getting in the way.

The moving and handling training covers not only heavy lifting, which could be required for moving patients, but also positioning your workstation and sitting correctly which could be important for someone doing a repetitive task like repeated injections.

All this training could be done on a single day's induction course.

Compare and contrast:

As I mentioned in another thread, the Wasbies were women volunteers who made their own arduous way to the Far East to help the troops in any way they could. No training for lifting heavy objects, no training for fire drills and equal opportunities - they just went out there to help in any way they could.

 

[Rocky]

Compare and contrast:

As I mentioned in another thread, the Wasbies were women volunteers who made their own arduous way to the Far East to help the troops in any way they could. No training for lifting heavy objects, no training for fire drills and equal opportunities - they just went out there to help in any way they could.

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My dad tells the story of being inoculated with some unknown jab before boarding the troop ship to Burma in 1943. He lined up with a couple of hundred other squaddies to receive a jab in his bum.......everyone was injected with the same needle and syringe; apparently there was a shortage at the time.

 

[midlife]

I was taught to inject in the bum, (upper and outer quadrant). Might get some funny looks if I ever get deployed to vaccinate....

 

[srw]

I don't disagree with any of that but the issue is providing bits of evidence that supposedly demonstrate that you understand about radicalisation etc etc. If you are a clinician, that evidence is ready at hand and will be part of your CPD portfolio. Retired clinicians and those not seeing patients will not have them.

In which case the problem is with the process of evidencing or training, not (as @accountantpete and ex-doctor Liam Fox were implying) with the requirements themselves.

If only the government had had nine months notice that one day they'd need to undertake a massive vaccination programme very quickly. They might have had a chance to develop robust plans to ensure that respected professors of public health could roll up their sleeves - and ask others to do the same so that jabs could be given quickly and safely.

 

[winjim]

Compare and contrast:

As I mentioned in another thread, the Wasbies were women volunteers who made their own arduous way to the Far East to help the troops in any way they could. No training for lifting heavy objects, no training for fire drills and equal opportunities - they just went out there to help in any way they could.

View attachment 568068

We're bringing the farking war into this discussion as well are we?

 

[srw]

Compare and contrast:

As I mentioned in another thread, the Wasbies were women volunteers who made their own arduous way to the Far East to help the troops in any way they could. No training for lifting heavy objects, no training for fire drills and equal opportunities - they just went out there to help in any way they could.

I don't know if you've noticed - but we're not actually at war abroad. Oddly enough civilians in their own country are a bit fussier than troops fighting a vicious enemy about standards and safety.

 

[Rocky]

In which case the problem is with the process of evidencing or training, not (as @accountantpete and ex-doctor Liam Fox were implying) with the requirements themselves.

If only the government had had nine months notice that one day they'd need to undertake a massive vaccination programme very quickly. They might have had a chance to develop robust plans to ensure that respected professors of public health could roll up their sleeves - and ask others to do the same so that jabs could be given quickly and safely.

I can't speak for Dr Fox or others from the retired medical community, but in the Prof's case, competence, training and experience is not an issue but evidencing it in the required format is. In this case, she won't be vaccinating the good people of Oxford but carrying on her research into long Covid et al.........after 40 years working in the health service she knows there are always plenty of other opportunities to contribute.

 

[accountantpete]

We're bringing the farking war into this discussion as well are we?

Why not? they were/are National Emergencies.

 

[srw]

evidencing it in the required format is

Yup. That's what I said.

I then used the opportunity to have a dig at government preparedness. Not like you to let that one slide...

 

[Drago]

Why not? they were/are National Emergencies.

Imdeed. In terms of mobilising a resource response they make an excellent parallel. In fact, they are so alike that combat trained personnel are often used in times such as this.

I'm trained and authorised - first responder- to administer intra muscluar injections, and I won't even bother trying to jump through the hoops the government have set. If its anything like the recent flu jab it will be a production line, where each subject is in the company of the person administering for 2 or 3 minutes.

This is a national emergency, and the response to the now biggest single cause of death among adults in the UK does not require that I am trained to recognise radicalism or domestic abuse. The emergency nature of the situation would require that I jab 40 people an hour, and then go home when the emergency has passed.

And nothing more.

The wellbeing of individuals is important, but the wellbeing of the nation takes priority in an emergency sotuation such as this. In normal times we can afford considerations secondary to clinical need to be of such import - during a national emergency with a massive, overriding priority, we cannot allow it. Anything that distracts from addressing immedetiate clinical lead should be dispensed with, solely for Covid, and solely for the duration of the emergency.

As things stand covid is killing far more people in the UK than radicalism, domestic abuse, suicided related to mental health, so it is utter insanity that these temporaility less dangerous causes of death are being given training and awareness priority over the administering of life saving covid vaccines.

 

[Rocky]

@srw - your point about having 9 months to plan......I'm told Matt Hancock turned up at an Oxford surgery last week to witness a vaccination clinic.....unfortunately the vaccine delivery was cancelled at short notice, so he stood around watching numerous medical staff phoning their elderly vulnerable confused patients to tell them not to pitch up......oh, the irony.


(Sorry I'm being slow today)

 

[BoldonLad]

Really?

Here's what my GP surgery had to say last weekend. They haven't updated this message.

"COVID-19 Vaccinations
We will be administering the first COVID-19 vaccinations (Pfizer BioNTech) to 975 of our most vulnerable patients from Weds 6th January, at [nextdoor town] Town Hall.

NHS England has advised that our initial priority is to vaccinate those who are aged 80 years old and older. However, the vaccination supply for next week is limited stock (975 doses) and this will not be enough to vaccinate all our patients aged over 80 in the first instance."

My rough calculation is that those 975 doses have to go around about 4,000 people over 80. We are in an affluent Tory-voting commuter town.

Our area started the vaccination program just a few days after the approval of the Pfizer Vaccine.

Grand-daughter (GP Surgey Receptionist) has had vaccination, Eldest daughter (her mother, a Senior Nurse Practiopner) is scheduled to receive AstraZenaca jab today, (she has allergy problems),

They have started doing the over 75 age group, at least two days ago. At least two of my relatives, in that group, have already been "done".

The centre at which my eldest daughter is working (administering vaccine) in now operating 7 days a week, not sure how many hours per day.

 

[nickyboy]

And despite all these hoops, UK is still the fourth most vaccinated country in the world and its rate of increase in vaccinations is as quick if not quicker than all but USA and Denmark (of the countries someone provided the graph for upthread). The temptation is to view the vaccination rollout through the myopic lens of political persuasion and that would be a mistake.

Just to provide a bit of context

 

[roubaixtuesday]

We're bringing the farking war into this discussion as well are we?

Beat me to it...