I have often sung the praises of the UK's vaccination programme - the wife and I got both our jabs without a hitch - but now they are winding it all down (instead of doing a final push to the finish line of around 90% double-jabbed, there is a hard core of refuseniks of say 10%) and the NHS don't seem to care any more.
The Lad went along with some mates to get his first jab at one of the drop-in sessions at Arsenal's football ground (or something like that) and dutifully kept the card they gave him with the date and batch number. He got the email (or text message or whatever they send you) with the date and time for his second jab, which should have been the week before last. He turned up on time, rolled up his sleeve and had his card ready for cross-referencing.
"Sorry, sir" said the admin person opposite the nurse, "It appears you haven't had your first jab yet, so we can't give you your second jab. Please ask your GP to update your records so that we can see it on our system. Then book another appointment."
In a sane world, they could have just pretended to give him a first jab (the doses are identical AFAIAA). If in doubt, just jab people! There might be a few nutcases who end up being vaccinated half a dozen times, but so what?. He has just set off for his fourth attempt at persuading the GP surgery to update his records, having been fobbed off with the usual excuses the previous three times.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed for him, but it wouldn't surprise me if they think up yet another excuse for not doing what they are paid to do. I do wonder why they are happy to waste so much of our time and theirs to get out of doing something that would be quicker than endlessly fobbing us off. Or maybe they'll say they'll do it and then simply not do it. Or maybe they'll do it and it still won't show up on the system.
Ah well.
Update. He just came back. The GP surgery took his card last week so that they could 'update the system' but they admitted they'd lost it ("We got a lot of those cards last week.") and gave him a bit of paper with the same info on it instead.
Tuesday, 17 August 2021
NHS reverts to type
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9 comments:
And when my late mother trained at Barts (a major training hospital) in 1943 the admin was a burser and three clerks with the Matron....
Everyone in the UK now has access to Covid 19 Self tests, Rapid antigen tests, rapid lateral flow tests.
Question. Why does the government not encourage everyone to use them in them same week or even the same day.
Din, probably because the results would not fit into their carefully selected policy-based evidence base.
L, and how smoothly did it run?
The UK has being doing vaccination programms for [a long time], we managed perfectly well without databases and NHS numbers back then.
Din, do you mean that on one particular day, everybody should take a test?
Yes that what I have in mind. On one particular day. The principle being that If everyone took the home test on one particular designated day, then that would reduce the spread. i.e. with the following period of self isolation for the positive tests there would be no one amongst the community spreading the virus.
Din, makes sense. Now persuade the government to persuade everybody to comply. I think we're fighting the last war here, with a bit of luck the whole thing will fade away again.
MW Faultlessly.
I was incarcerated there om several occasions in the late 50's / early 60's and it ran well, 'cos of the latency of the Old Regime. The NHS hadn't quite managed to get to it by then.
It has now.
L, no surprises there, then.
Me and my sisters got jabs for this that and the other in the 1960s and 1970s and the GP just updated the records by hand. They did mass polio vaccinations all round the world, including countries where a lot of people can't read or write. It all worked somehow.
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