Covid vaccine: NHS England urged to act over ‘unequal’ roll out leaving vulnerable staff

The roll out of the coronavirus vaccine by NHS hospitals and GPs is inconsistent and unequal and leaving high risk staff unprotected, the British Medical Association has warned.

In a letter to NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens the BMA’s council chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul said he was receiving “deeply worrying” testimony from doctors that the vaccination programme was not being handled fairly but the NHS hospitals and GPs who had received the Pfizer vaccine first.

The letter, sent on Monday, said: “Healthcare staff in trusts which are delivering the vaccine, may have access, whilst staff in some hospitals not involved in administering the vaccine may not. In other instances, some hospital staff have access to community vaccination sites whilst in other areas there is no such arrangement.

“In general practice, there seems to be no consistent or systematic approach to vaccinating GPs and their staff, nor any seeming prioritisation.”

Dr Nagpaul told Sir Simon it was vital staff who were classed as high risk from the virus were given priority in the rollout especially during what he called a “dramatic escalation in the spread of the virus” and a new variant of the disease that could be significantly more infectious.

“We are receiving reports that doctors with underlying risk factors are not being prioritised above colleagues without these risk factors. This also includes those doctors from a black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds who are at high risk and have been so disproportionately adversely affected by the virus,” he said.

The BMA has asked NHS England to explain what steps it was taking to address the concerns and to ensure frontline doctors are protected through “an equal but prioritised approach to administration of the vaccine for all healthcare workers.”

On Monday, The Independent revealed frontline nurses and doctors from Barts Health Trust – the worst affected hospital for Covid patients - had been turned away from one GP vaccine hub in North London.

The Royal London Hospital, part of the Barts Health Trust, had 166 Covid patients on its wards. The trust as a whole had 465 patients across its five hospitals, 28 per cent of the total beds available.

Intermal emails, see by The Independent, revealed senior bosses at the trust were “frustrated” at the lack of access to the vaccine and the fact the trust had not been designated as a vaccine hub.

Of the five hubs chosen by NHS England for rolling out the vaccine, four are in South London.

After the articles were published, Barts Health Trust confirmed on Tuesday it had now been told it would receive the vaccine on Wednesday and begin to vaccinate its staff.

In the West Midlands a row has broken out between trade unions and hospital bosses after the BBC learned senior managers at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital trust were offered the vaccine instead of frontline doctors and nurses.

The trust told the BBC members of its executive team were offered the vaccine after booked patients did not turn up.

Ravi Subramanian from Unison said it was "nothing short of a scandal” that managers were getting the vaccine before doctors and nurses.

NHS England was approached for comment.