Vaccine supply shortage concerns in St Helens
3,000 risk cancelled vaccinations if national supply issue isn’t resolved
Last updated 3rd Mar 2021
UPDATE: Marie Rimmer has tweeted to say an additional 3,200 vaccines will be provided to St Helens.
Earlier today, St Helens residents were at risk of having vaccination appointments postponed due to a “misunderstanding” in the national supply scheme.
3,000 people in cohort six – adults aged 16-65 in at-risk groups – could see their vaccination dates moved if supply issues are not resolved by Thursday lunchtime.
The town has four primary care networks (PCNs) operating at the Totally Wicked Stadium vaccination centre – Central, North, South and Newton & Haydock.
GP services all belong to one of the PCNs, and each network covers around 30,000-50,000 patients.
However, NHS England procedures have seen the four networks all counted as one operating out of the stadium.
Until now, each PCN in the GP-led surgery downstairs has been relying on excess vaccinations from the mass vaccination centre upstairs, which acts as a hub for the entire North West.
As cohort seven – that is, those aged 60+ – are being called in for their vaccinations, there is a concern that cohort six will be left short as there are no spare vaccinations left over from the mass vaccination centre.
Today, MP for St Helens South and Whiston Marie Rimmer urged Health Secretary Matt Hancock to address the possible shortage.
She said: “Over 3,000 clinically vulnerable people in cohort six are going to have their vaccinations cancelled in St Helens at the end of this week. This is unless the required supplies are delivered by Thursday lunchtime.
“The vaccine site is serving four primary care networks, yet the national supply team is only recognising and supplying one network. The mutual aid gathered to cover this shortfall in the past is no longer available.
“Will the Secretary of State please urgently intervene to address this misunderstanding so that no vaccinations are cancelled?”
Hancock responded to say that he would “absolutely ensure” that Minister for Vaccine Rollout Nadhim Zahawi will get in touch to assist in the situation.
He admitted that there “may be logistical challenges” in the “massive effort” of vaccine rollout, but that he’d “look and understand what the situation in St Helens is”.
The Health Secretary continued: “I have some family in St Helens so I’m pretty keen to see this gets sorted ASAP.
“It just shows that it isn’t easy to do this and the team is working incredibly hard to resolve issues, like the one that the Honourable Lady rightly raised, all the time.”
Jeanette Livings, senior communications and engagement manager for St Helens CCG, said: “Vaccine supplies for the GP-led site have been an issue from the outset of the Covid-19 vaccination programme.
“Thanks to our close working with St Helens and Knowsley Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust … to date we have always managed to obtain the necessary vaccines for the patients we have booked in – often at fairly short notice.
“However, this week we will be around 3000 vaccines short which will result in us having to cancel patient’s appointments – many of whom are clinically vulnerable and desperate to be vaccinated.
“We apologise sincerely to these patients, however, this situation is out of our control and we are trying everything we can to procure additional supplies.”
Dr Hilary Flett, GP clinical lead for the vaccination rollout in St Helens, commented: “This is a really challenging situation – to enable us to get the vaccines we need to vaccinate our patients, we have to rely substantially on mutual aid from our mass vaccination site.
“So far this has allowed us to vaccinate over 40,000 people but it has been difficult to get the allocation we require.
“The GP-led site is made up of four PCNs with 33 GP practices, however are only recognised as one PCN by NHS England who rather than seeing us as having 200,000 patients instead work on the basis of 30,000-50,000 which affects how many vaccines we are supplied.
“We have raised this with NHS England on numerous occasions and while mutual aid has enabled us to achieve our fantastic vaccination numbers, this week, with the combination of national shortage of vaccines along with rollout of cohort seven, the mass vaccination site is at full capacity and unable to offer any mutual aid in terms of additional supplies.”
NHS boss Sir Simon Stevens admitted back in January that “of course there is a supply shortage” of COVID-19 vaccines.
There have also been problems with vaccine supplies in EU countries, with Belgium warning last week of “serious delays” to the vaccination schedule.
“Our local MP has raised this issue in Parliament with the Secretary of State and we are hopeful this issue will be resolved quickly.
“If we do have to cancel appointments, we can only apologise and please be assured your GP practice will contact you to rearrange your appointment for the next available date,” Dr Flett added.