Dr Lizzie Toberty, DAUK GP lead, talked to i news UK about the upcoming autumn Covid booster campaign of NHS England:
“Practices have looked at available funding to provide the latest Covid vaccine and it simply isn’t viable. The money for previous rollouts, which has now been reduced or removed, comes on the back of increases in staff costs with the recent pay uplift [part funded from existing NHS budgets], and also increased energy costs.
“Nobody’s asking to make money on this but we can’t deliver a vaccine programme at a loss. That can’t come out of individual GP partners’ pockets, so the funding needs to be urgently reviewed or an alternative programme or provider sought. But that would mean patients making two trips to have a Covid and flu vaccine which can be delivered at once.
“And I find it really concerning that in the middle of August we don’t know how we are going to run a vaccine programme that is supposed to be rolled out in September. There needs to be more understanding from the Government and NHS England as to what the likely costs GP practices will incur and then to work with practices to deliver the programme. Right now though it’s all looking very uncertain.”
Read the full story by Paul Gallagher here.
