Newcastle’s city-wide vaccination programme is “perhaps the slickest vaccination operation in the UK”.
That’s according to yesterday’s Guardian newspaper report on all 31 GP practices in the city working together.
You can read the article on the Guardian website here.
The large-scale, collaborative approach and coordination was praised for its speed and efficiency – with 30 patients being vaccinated every 5 minutes.
Progress so far
In just over 5 weeks since the programme started, more than 33,000 Newcastle residents have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.
Newcastle is the first city in the country to have vaccinated all eligible care home residents – the top priority group.
Across the city, 84% of people over 80 have received a first dose – nearly 10,000 in total.
For JHP patients, over 90% of the over 80s have been vaccinated, along with 91% of registered health care workers. Nearly 3 in every 4 people aged 75-79 have either even vaccinated or invited.
Priority Groups
People are being invited to be vaccinated in order of their likelihood to get seriously ill from COVID-19. The top 4 groups are:
- Residents in a care home for older adults and staff working in care homes for older adults
- 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 (not including pregnant women and those under 16 years of age)
You will be contacted when it’s your turn
We want to remind patients that when it is your turn to be vaccinated, you will be contacted either by us or the NHS directly. Please do not contact us in advance. We appreciate people want to get vaccinated. We have an agreed approach, which is working.
In the meantime, please continue to protect yourself and those around you by practising social distancing, hand hygiene and wearing masks.