Covid Vaccinations

Posted on October 5th, 2023

3W Health’s Decision to Not provide the COVID Vaccination

It appears there is some mis-conception in the community as to the reason 3W Health are not running COVID clinics this Autumn.

The decision to not participate in COVID vaccinations was considered very carefully and we are aware not having a local offering does impact those with limited mobility or lack of transport, however, there are a number of important factors that influenced our decision.

The provision of COVID Vaccinations is not part of our core medical contract.  In order to be able to receive additional funding to deliver this service, we needed to be able to demonstrate we could run the COVID service in addition to our business-as-usual operations, without having a detrimental impact on the availability of existing services.  We could not hand on heart do this.  We are already facing challenges in meeting the increased demand of our growing patient population of almost 20,000 patients.  We currently have a number of vacancies across our clinical and administration teams which we are working to fill and so would not be able to take on additional activities currently.

The amount of time required to manage the specific ordering, delivery, storage, distribution, invitation and booking process for COVID vaccinations is considerable and 3W were being asked to do this on behalf of the North Bucks Primary Care Network which includes Edlesborough, Ashcroft and Waddesdon surgeries.  This would have been a substantial undertaking.  Sadly, the process is not as simple as seasonal flu vaccinations.

We would also have had to commit to further time out for our clinicians to complete the additional training required to administer the various COVID vaccinations – this would have impacted on appointment availability.

Finally, the last time we offered COVID vaccinations we saw a considerable downturn in uptake amongst our patient population and the clinics were not consistently full or attended (a considerable number of patients did not attend booked appointments) which impacted on appointment availability for other service users.

We have therefore decided to prioritise the delivery of our core services for the benefit of the wider practice population.

What happens if I need a COVID vaccine?

All COVID vaccines are being offered via the national booking service and coordinated centrally.  Eligible patients will receive an invitation from NHS England.  Appointments can also be booked / arranged by telephoning 119 for those without online access.

The sites participating upload their availability to the national booking service on a regular basis, so it is worth checking availability of local sites regularly.  We do not have any influence over this I am afraid.

See the government website for more information: Getting a COVID-19 vaccine – NHS (www.nhs.uk)

Patients who are truly housebound e.g. do not leave the house for appointments, or to visit friends and family are coded as such on their medical record and their details are passed to our Integrated Care Board who are working to arrange for a provider to visit these patients in their home to administer the COVID vaccine – we do not have a timeframe for these visits as yet.  These patients will be contacted directly once arrangements are finalised.

Please note this service is expensive to run and cannot be used for those with transport difficulties and we would urge patients in these situations to utilise local transport solutions, friends and family and community support where possible.

We are sorry that this time around we have been unable to offer this service to our patients but are committed to continually reviewing our services and hope with continued recruitment and development of our practice processes we will be able to revisit this decision in the future.