Patients will be called and booked an appointment for a vaccination when vaccines become available please do not call the surgery. The added call volume means poorly patients are not able to get through to us.

We are following strict guidelines and patients will be invited for vaccination as per the prioritisation of patient groups advised by The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), these currently are;

• Cohort 1: Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers
• Cohort 2: All those 80 years of age and over and Frontline health and social care workers. For the purpose of covid-19 vaccinations a frontline health and social care workers is outlined as follows;

JCVI recommend that within this group, you should give priority to frontline staff “at high risk of acquiring infection, at high individual risk of developing serious disease, or at risk of transmitting infection to multiple vulnerable persons or other staff in a healthcare environment”.

This includes:

• staff working on the vaccination programme
• staff who have frequent face-to-face contact with patients and who are directly involved in patient care in either secondary or primary care, mental health, urgent and emergency care and community settings
• those working in independent, voluntary and non-standard healthcare settings such as hospices, and community-based mental health or addiction services
• laboratory, pathology and mortuary staff
• those working for a sub-contracted provider of facilities services such as portering or cleaning
• temporary, locum or ‘bank’ staff, including those working in the COVID-19 vaccination programme, students, trainees and volunteers who are working with patients
• frontline social care workers directly working with vulnerable people who need care and support irrespective of where they work (for example in hospital, people’s own homes, day centres, or supported housing); or who they are employed by (for example local government, NHS, independent sector or third sector).

This does not include unpaid carers or those in receipt of carers allowance (see cohort 6).

• Cohort 3: All those 75 years of age and over
• Cohort 4: All those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals (those that received a shielding letter from the government)
• Cohort 5: All those 65 years of age and over
• Cohort 6: All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality (those normally in receipt of a flu vaccination including unpaid carers)
• Cohort 7: All those 60 years of age and over
• Cohort 8: All those 55 years of age and over
• Cohort 9: All those 50 years of age and over

Occupational vaccination (other than frontline health and social care workers)

The committee considered evidence on the risk of exposure and risk of mortality by occupation. Under the priority groups advised below, those over 50 years of age, and all those 16 years of age and over in a risk group, would be eligible for vaccination within the first phase of the programme. This prioritisation captures almost all preventable deaths from COVID-19, including those associated with occupational exposure to infection. As such, JCVI does not advise further prioritisation by occupation during the first phase of the programme.

Occupational prioritisation could form part of a second phase of the programme, which would include healthy individuals from 16 years of age up to 50 years of age, subject to consideration of the latest data on vaccine safety and effectiveness.

For more information please visit; www.gov.uk/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation-advice-on-priority-groups-for-covid-19-vaccination

How to make sure your records are correct

If you are registered as a patient with us and are currently a patient facing health or social care worker – please email us from your work email address to wsccg.orchardhouse@nhs.net

Please give details of your job role so we can note this on your records. This is to help us plan future COVID vaccination clinics for patients that work in Health and Social Care. Please note that you may need to provide work related ID when invited for your vaccination.