NHS Grampian’s head of health intelligence has said extending the Covid booster programme to all over 18s is the right thing to do – but has warned it will not be without consequences.
The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has recommended that all over 18s should be eligible for the booster jab following the discovery of the Omicron variant.
They have also advised that the time between second and third doses should be reduced to three months.
NHS Grampian’s Jillian Evans admitted it would challenging to roll out the booster to at least another million more people, especially during the winter period.
Speaking on BBC’s Good Morning Scotland, she said: “I think we heard yesterday from the UK Government that ‘we’ll do it but it’s going to be a challenge’.
“And it won’t be without consequences in other parts of the service too, I imagine, but it’s certainly our best plan at this point in time.”
Staff shortages could cause delays
She echoed Health Secretary Humza Yousaf’s admission that staff shortages could delay plans to further roll-out the booster programme, saying it will be their biggest challenge “by a mile”.
“The supply is there, providing we can introduce this in a phased way, in a managed way, then the supply of vaccine won’t be an issue, it’ll be the availability of staff,” Ms Evans said.
The extension of the booster programme will create a “huge number” of additional shifts as well as currently unknown deadlines and timelines.
Many of the staff who worked in the mass vaccination centres have now returned to their normal job, and Ms Evans said moving them back away from frontline services would “solve one problem and leave another elsewhere.”
“It absolutely will be difficult to achieve but not impossible,” she said. “We were working on the basis of what would we need through Christmas, and those were eye-watering numbers of staff.
“Going in to the new year eases that pressure and gives us time to plan.
“We’re lucky that we’ve got support from military, we’ve got pharmacy support, parts of the country still use GPs, there may be lots of different solutions for different parts of the country.
“Should we think about training other people up? Well, we may not have time to do that now given the need to get this up and running very quickly.”
Interest in the booster is ‘increasing’
Winter is always the busiest time of year for the NHS, so in a pandemic it becomes even more difficult to mobilise the staff, especially in the way it was done during the roll-out of the first vaccination programme.
She said there has been an increase in interest for the booster but it cannot begin to be rolled out to more people yet.
“We don’t have the medical guidelines in place to do it sooner yet,” she added.
“So, we’ve had lots of inquiries, lots of people wanting to know if they can book and lots of people being excited. Interest about it has definitely increasing.”
However, she says it is important they offer a combination of ways for people to book their appointments.
When NHS Grampian introduced the self-booking portal for the 50 to 59 age group, they found a “significant drop” in the uptake.
Following the early success of offering appointments, she believes it would be a good idea to move on that basis, saying that making getting an appointment easier for people would help them manage the programme better.