The Rycote Practice started vaccinating patients on 29 December in partnership with our PCN colleagues, starting with the over 80s and healthcare workers. We are currently vaccinating close to 500 patients a week and hope to accelerate this programme as vaccine supply increases. Currently we are using the Pfizer Biotech vaccine and this means that our patients have to travel to Wheatley due to the small number of sites that have been authorised in Oxfordshire. In the coming weeks we expect to receive the Oxford Astra Zeneca vaccine and will be prioritising care home and housebound patients initially – we hope that ultimately we will be able to offer this vaccine in Thame. We are vaccinating patients in accordance with the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidelines which groups patients into 9 categories largely based on age (with special provision for care home residents, health and social care workers and extremely vulnerable patients). Please be patient and do not call the surgery – we will contact you as we move down this priority list. Please note it takes a while for immunisation to be built up after receiving the vaccine – patients should continue to observe good hand hygiene, social distancing and wear masks while we endeavour to get this pandemic under control.
At Unity Health we started our Covid vaccination clinics before Christmas and have vaccinated 1000 over 80 year olds to date. All vaccinations are taking place at the Community Centre in Princes Risborough. We are now focusing on care homes and social care staff at the end of this week and will start vaccinating the next NHS cohort (75-79 year olds) as soon as we are allocated more vaccine. To date we have been provided with the Pfizer vaccine and anticipate some Astra Zeneca vaccine at the end of the week/beginning of next week which we will use for smaller care homes, those over 80 who could not have the Pfizer vaccine and, possibly, start with our housebound patients.
For information the priority list (revised 30 December) is:
- residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
- all those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers
- all those 75 years of age and over
- all those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals[
- all those 65 years of age and over
- all individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality[
- all those 60 years of age and over
- all those 55 years of age and over
- all those 50 years of age and over
PLEASE DO NOT CALL THE SURGERIES - THEY WILL CONTACT YOU!
