Weymouth GP warns NHS staff already 'frazzled' as booster campaign begins
Retired Weymouth GP Jon Orrell warns the booster campaign will come at the cost of regular NHS services in Dorset
A retired Weymouth GP says doctors and nurses across Dorset are feeling 'frazzled' after an intense year.
Boris Johnson announced plans on Sunday to offer a booster jab to every adult before the end of December, bringing their original target forward by a month.
But the first vaccine campaign combined with increased demand has put consistent pressure on NHS staff.
Weymouth councillor and retired GP Jon Orrell told Greatest Hits Radio Dorset:
"It's going to be quite a challenge to say the least. You can probably imagine the whole NHS is a bit frazzled at the moment.
"We've been through quite a year, managed to deliver the first few waves, a lot of GPs came out of retirement and extra clinics put on.
"One of the reasons people have struggled getting access to the services is because we've been flat out delivering waves one and two, and we'll do our best on wave three as well."
Jon says he is going to be volunteering to help the vaccine campaign reach it's December 31st target. But just calling in ex-doctors won't cut it.
He said:
"We're going to depend on more than retired GPs, we need to call in nurses and pharmacists and I hear the army are going to give us a hand as well.
"It really is all hands on deck because it really is such a number to get out.
"What is going to suffer, and we've seen it already in the last year, it's been hard to get average access... that will be the same now. If we're going to deliver all this extra work, it means it's harder to do the day job."
Responsive services in case of emergencies will still be available, but Jon says day-to-day services like routine check ups are likely to get pushed back in favour of the booster rollout.
"It is a trade off. We don't really want to be missing out on doing diabetes and heart checks, but then again they are vulnerable people and if they're not immunised then they're at great risk of catching this third wave of omicron.
"On balance, the government's decided, and I probably would agree that we've really got to get the immunity in for this wave. Otherwise those very vulnerable people will be caught by this wave."