From the Guardian. I was criticised on here for suggesting this might be the case. What he has got right is to just let the NHS get on with it. Boris Johnson has sought to reassure the public over the vaccine programme as NHS leaders privately accuse ministers of piling pressure on staff to meet unrealistic expectations amid “political boasting”. Speaking at a Downing Street press conference, the prime minister repeatedly underlined the safety of the Oxford/AstraZeneca jab, which was reaffirmed by regulators in the EU and UK on Thursday after many EU countries suspended its use. On Wednesday NHS England had announced a sharp decline in vaccine supplies for April, with ministers citing delays in millions of doses from India and the need to retest 1.7m doses. But Johnson insisted the dates in the roadmap for reopening society would not have to be moved back, saying: “Our progress along the road to freedom remains unchecked.” Meanwhile, senior health service figures told the Guardian that staff delivering the vaccines were “demoralised” and “in despair”, with ministers “constantly moving the goalposts” by briefing that immunisation targets would be brought forward, while underplaying the risk of supply disruptions. There was also “huge frustration” among family doctors running GP-led vaccination sites and bosses of hospitals managing mass vaccination centres that ministers were wrongly trying to claim credit for the success of the programme. More than 25 million Britons have received a jab since 8 December. The health secretary, Matt Hancock, conceded in the Commons on Thursday that there would be a drop-off in supply next month, saying 5m doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine would arrive later than expected from India and that a separate batch of 1.7m doses had to be retested. However, the Serum Institute of India, which is manufacturing the AstraZeneca vaccine, denied any delay and said there had been no agreed time-frame to deliver a second tranche of 5m doses, according to a source authorised to speak for the facility. The UK government declined to give any details about where the 1.7m doses being retested had originated, or why they were having to be checked for a second time. Hancock claimed the shortfall was not cause for alarm, saying: “Events like this are to be expected in a manufacturing endeavour of this complexity.” Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said there was no significant evidence that people were refusing the jab in Britain. But personnel who are centrally involved in organising the vaccination drive are annoyed about media stories promising that people of a particular age will have their first dose ahead of previous expectations and that ministers have not been open with them or the public about the risk of interruptions to vaccine supply, such as the one that emerged this week. Previously hidden tensions between the NHS and the government over the speed of the deployment and who deserves recognition have emerged in the wake of the dose shortage. The month-long slowdown has dashed government hopes of hitting the next milestone – immunising all the over-50s – well before the mid-April deadline ministers set themselves publicly. In the Commons on Thursday, Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, gave examples of the sorts of media stories and statements that had left NHS vaccination staff irritated. “On Saturday government sources were briefing the Daily Telegraph of a ‘bumper boost’ that everyone over 40 would be offered their first vaccine by Easter. Last week the business secretary was hinting all adults could be vaccinated by June, saying ‘there’s no reason why we can’t be optimistic’,” he said. One senior NHS leader said: “There is frustration that the politicians are very focused on political boasting about the success of the vaccine rollout and who’s going to get jabbed when, without taking into account the operational complexity of what that means. “The risk is that these political boasting messages will create undue expectation over who can get their jab when, which risks overwhelming NHS staff who are already going as fast as they can. Staff are annoyed that the government seems obsessed with how things will play politically and in the media, but has no sense of the public health impact of such statements.” Another senior NHS official said: “Frontline staff want ministers to stop over-promising and be more measured and more realistic, and just stick to the original plan of which groups would be vaccinated by when – all adults by the end of July, which would still be some achievement. “Staff doing the vaccinations are demoralised and in despair about all this. They feel like they’re being set up to fail. They resent people like Matt Hancock claiming credit for the rollout when it’s the NHS that’s responsible for its success. The main barrier to speeding up the rollout is vaccine supply, which is completely outside the control of GPs and the NHS. “We are also hearing annoyance in some quarters that the successful rollout is often reported as the ‘government’s vaccine programme’ whereas the shortcomings of other programmes, such as test and trace, are readily – and not always fairly – attributed to the NHS. GPs have done a phenomenal job, showing the NHS at its very best, and that should be acknowledged.” Labour criticised the government last week for using taxpayers’ money to finance a half-hour documentary about the vaccine programme. A trailer carried the strapline: “Extraordinary. Unexpected. Fantastic. A Beacon of Hope.” Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the British Medical Association’s GPs committee, stressed that GPs had played the key role so far and would have inoculated even more people if there had not already been several slowdowns in the availability of the vaccine. He said: “The government hasn’t administered any vaccines, they’ve commissioned NHS services to do this … The main constraint on the programme has been the amount of supplies of vaccines that the government has secured … and the restrictions the government has placed on the programme, a lot of which is to do with funding. “It’s a government programme in that it’s taxpayer funded, but we mustn’t overlook the fact that it’s the ingenuity, the energy and the commitment of NHS staff around the country that have delivered it.”
Johnson is taking the credit for the work and organisation being shown by the NHS. Something they would have done irrespective of who the government is.
Sounds like the NHS spokesperson believes the vaccine arrived at vaccination centres and GP surgeries by magic. Not a single mention of the logistics of transportation and distribution on such a massive scale. Not one word of credit in that direction. The whole article is pretty distasteful: It's not them that's great it's us that's great, we're brilliant, we deserve all the credit, we're fab. They sound just as bad as the government. Most people seem to agree the vaccination program has been hugely successful. If you stop to think about the whole operation for just a few seconds you realise there must be lots of people in many different organisations and disciplines that have played a part in that: developers, manufacturers, organisers, distributors. They all deserve credit. That includes the NHS but it isn't limited to them. They inject the vaccine in your arm. A hell of a lot happened before it got there.
I don't think theu are among they're great. Just don't want the government promising a timescale that can't be delivered.
The only thing I'd ask people to consider is how many times you've heard the following two phrases from our government and its supporting media. NHS test and trace. The NHS vaccination programme. One has been an expensive shambles not ft for purpose. The other has been largely successful. One had nothing to do with the NHS. The other has largely been delivered by the NHS. One you hear constantly. One you never hear at all.
The thing that concerns me, and even the Guardian are increasingly guilty of this, are many articles are increasingly littered with phrases like "unnamed sources" ...." senior health service figures" and phrases like..."We are also hearing annoyance in some quarters..." I appreciate with the modern phenomenon of confidentiality clauses and gagging order in employment contracts it is increasingly difficult to name sources but when so much is heresay, gossip and could be attributed to people with an agenda it devalues the articles. "Some quarters.... " could be a couple of cleaners with an axe to grind! Yes the NHS has been brilliant and it is clear the staff are under immense pressure but it HAS been a joint effort. Someone, as has already been said, had to coordinate the logistics procure, vaccines and the Govt and Civil service together with the private sector have facilitated the NHS delivery. The problem with some on here is when things are wrong they argue the buck stops with the Govt. ministers PM etc. They shouild carry the can as they are responsible. Then when things go right, it is not down to Govt. ministers PM etc. Same happens with unions. When a company is successful and boosts profits etc it is the workers who have achieve all that (yes they have played a major part) but when it goes wrong the workforce are portrayed as victims and it is often portrayed as all the management's fault. You cannot have it both ways. It has been a great achievement due, whether you like it admit it or not, to every element of the operation, scientists, Govt, Civil Service, NHS, private companies in manufacturing and logistics . Finally, as confirmation of the fact that Govt did get most of it right, Italy has the largest Pharma industry in Europe, it was handicapped by the Govt insistence on following the EU, all for one and one for all approach and under the former PM Conti, the vaccine rollout has been (and still is an utter shambles) despite Govt assurances back in January that everything was in place for a fast and effective vaccination programme To date, Marche region (pop 1.5 million) has only vaccinated 190,000 doses in over two and a half months!! For nearly 2 months there were only 7 places (all hospitals) administering the vaccine, with 80 year olds complaining of having to stand outside for 3 or more hours even though they had appointments booked. Only last week someone 85 years old waited for 3 hours only to be sent home since they had suddenly banned the AZ vaccine she was about to receive!
NHS Test and Trace had nothing to do with the NHS? Literally nothing? Just like £38 billion went to Serco, right? There wasn’t a test and trace programme of any considerable size. One was built within the umbrella of NHS using both public and private personnel. It’s true that a lot was subcontracted because you can’t suddenly ‘find’ thousands of people to run it and they were paid a lot. But to say it had nothing to do with the NHS? It’s no doubt there’s been big failings in the tracing programme, but to build capacity to test 800,000 people a day and run genomic sequencing of about a 1/3 of all positive cases to track variants isn’t bad? Should the NHS not get any credit for that? As is the case with everything to do with the pandemic, it’s been a mix of private a public, NHS and civil service. Praise and criticism should be shared across all of these. I think it’s odd to suggest that the NHS hasn’t been praised for the vaccination programme however. I hear it get praised pretty much everyday, from journalists and government ministers?
I think you are underestimating how the NHS is involved in the whole process, it's not just about them jabbing it in the arm. Planning, logistics, booking are are being done by NHS. There are others involved too, especially in transportation of vaccines but the coordination of that is being done by the NHS. The NHS is not just nurses and doctors. There is a whole world of expertise in getting millions of vaccinations done every year.
They’ll be enough falls for it to get him elected next time . He could sell the NHS and they’d still be “ But Corbyn “ type comments .
The Government deserves SOME credit. It just does. However, the Government is still full of manipulative, lying, cheating corrupt spin merchants. That too should be acknowledged. Unfortunately come the local elections most people will forget the latter point and the 'vaccine bounce' will see more of 'em elected. Sad but I suspect true
Imo the Govt deserved credit for the ordering of the vaccines but tbh I’d say any Govt be it labour, coalition or whoever would have done that . The Government have stood back on this after having their fingers burned in the PPE scandal , They’ve let the experts take over from the civil service to the NHS and the organisation and application had been phenomenal , so the Governmrnt can take credit on not interfering in this one.
I just noted that there is a by election in Hartlepool in the May elections. Currently held by Labour but they lost around 25% of their vote at the last GE and the BXP and Tory vote was split fairly evenly but combined would have given them a significant win. Can't help be concerned that the Tory majority will somehow increase shortly.
Imagine if the Government had made a £37bn budget available for NHS and local authorities to manage the pandemic after the first lockdown. Infection rates would be a lot lower and we'd be in a far better place to handle any future pandemics, with more investment in NHS labs across the country.
I think everyone involved in the roll out deserves praise. We are lucky to be in one of the best positions in the world for protecting our population. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ughs-vaccinate-30-fewer-55s-Isles-Scilly.html You can type in where you're from to see how many over 55s have been vaccinated so far in your area. Kirklees came in at 82.53% which isn't too bad based on the rest of the country and how much of a multi cultural area it is here. Barnsley though was as low as 78.33% which surprised me.
