An update has been given on covid vaccination progress for people registered with Ramsgate GP surgeries.
The five Ramsgate practices, Dashwood, East Cliff, The Grange, Newington and Summerhill, are working together to deliver the vaccine programme. Between the five practices they care for over 51,000 patients across Ramsgate.
The Montefiore Medical Centre, which houses both East Cliff and the Grange practices, has been designated as the main vaccine site for Ramsgate.
Patients of Dashwood, East Cliff and Summerhill will be offered a vaccination at East Cliff Surgery (at Montefiore). Patients of The Grange and Newington will be offered a vaccination at The Grange Surgery (at Montefiore).
Appointments are based on the national priority list. There will be home visits arranged for housebound patients.
As of January 21 the hub of practices has completed vaccinating all residents in Ramsgate living in a care home for older adults, along with their carers.
The GPs have vaccinated around 60% of patients aged 80 years of age and over and plan to complete first vaccinations of the remaining patients by January 30.
Frontline health and social care workers registered at one of the practices are advised to follow guidance from their employer and attend hospital hub sites for vaccination.
Within the Montefiore Medical Centre medical staff have already delivered around 2,600 doses and by close of play on Saturday they are expecting to have delivered more than 3,500 doses.
A statement from Montefiore Medical Centre says: “We are prioritising this programme and committing all available staff to this effort as well as recruiting bank staff and volunteers. All of these staff need to be screened and trained. A significant proportion of staff are working extra hours to ensure this programme runs smoothly.
“We are dependent upon vaccine supply. At the moment this is centrally decided and we only receive notification of delivery a few days in advance making it challenging to plan clinics.
“We administer the vast majority of vaccine stock we receive within two days of them arriving at the surgery. If more stock were available we would increase our efforts to vaccinate more people sooner.
“This is not like a flu vaccination programme. There are distinct differences in how the different vaccines are managed and handled.
“Typically with flu vaccines we receive prefilled syringes. The Covid Vaccines come in vials and require careful handling and drawing up into syringes meaning the process takes longer.
“Additionally with the Pfizer vaccine, patients are required to wait 15 minutes after their vaccination meaning we have a slower flow of patients through the clinics.
“All practices remain open and we are having to manage the same daily workload alongside running the vaccination programme”
Priority groups
Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers (Complete)
All those 80 years of age and over and frontline health and social care workers (In progress)
All those 75 years of age and over (In progress)
All those 70 years of age and over and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals (Due to start shortly)
All those 65 years of age and over (Not yet started)
All individuals aged 16 years to 64 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality (Not yet started)
All those 60 years of age and over (Not yet started)
All those 55 years of age and over (Not yet started)
All those 50 years of age and over (Not yet started)
