Make vaccine centres permanent and properly funded to end the drain on scarce NHS resources

Assuming vaccines and boosters are going to be with us throughout 2022 and possibly well beyond next year, it is surely time to end the ad hoc approach with its pop-up vaccination centres, volunteer staff and, more to the point, the draining of scarce NHS resources by using GPs, nurses and other fully trained medical staff who are sorely needed elsewhere.

We should be starting now to set up a nationwide network of full-time vaccination centres based both at hospitals and larger surgeries, and at new dedicated clinics, with a permanent salaried staff of vaccinators and admin personnel. A new government taskforce could set this up quite quickly without imposing any further burdens on NHS administrators.

Surely many of the unemployed – especially the young who are so desperately seeking first jobs – could be trained quite easily for this work. These clinics would be there for future pandemics, but could no doubt handle annual flu jabs, and possibly many childhood inoculations, taking a significant load off fully trained medical staff. In less busy times they could probably be deployed to help lighten the load of some of the routine administrative burdens on NHS staff.

The government’s short-term panic approach to all these Covid issues has got to stop. Let’s have a bit of strategy for a change.

Gavin Turner

Gunton, Norfolk

Denis MacShane’s article raises legitimate questions and gives a balanced picture of the options surrounding the Queen. Whilst I have long been of the view that the monarchy should go, I agree that there needs to to be a rational and balanced national debate which would take in the views of all parts of the United Kingdom. However, I cannot see that happening following the Brexit debate.

John E Harrison

Chorley, Lancashire

The continuing Windrush scandal, the appalling treatment of migrants (and the upcoming Nationality and Borders Bill) and now the suggestion that those who have “become” British nationals over many years could be stripped of their hard-won British identity (without appeal) – sounds to me like creeping ethnic cleansing in favour of the “pure” Brit.

What have we come to? I am ashamed to call myself British under this government.

Wendy Draper

Winchester

If history has taught us anything, it is that when people become disillusioned with their lot and governments ignore the needs of the country, decisive action is necessary.

Boris Johnson’s governance of Britain is nothing short of reprehensible. He and his inept cohorts are responsible for lowering our horizons for a better future. They have mishandled our financial future – leaving the EU. They are responsible, through inaction, for thousands of unnecessary Covid-19 deaths, and are currently trying to put a gag on our judicial system in relation to immigration and human rights.

Big businesses appear to be running the country now and Mr Johnson down to the lowest “adviser” to the government are so imbued with selfish ambition that they have lost any semblance of public duty and integrity.

Such an inept Conservative Party ought not to be permitted to run a once Great Britain. I hope that the byelection on Thursday gives the government a bloody nose and then roll on to the next general election.

Keith Poole

Basingstoke

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A key piece of information is being constantly omitted in reporting of the PM’s promise to offer everyone over the age of 18 a booster jab by the end of the month. You need to have received your second jab at least three months before being eligible for the booster, so it is impossible for Johnson’s target to be met. So look forward to reports of people queuing for hours in the cold and rain only to be turned away for this reason.

Rob Ford

Chester

Denis MacShane has dared to speak the thoughts of the nation. My parents were the war generation and I grew up with their respect for our monarchy, if not their patience for the excess of poor behaviour.

The world has changed and a monarchy no longer fits with the growing global recognition of the rights of individual humans. A monarchy is very visibly out of step with the idea.

Candy Matterson

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