The issues that will affect practices’ ability to rapidly deliver this programme include vaccine supplies and delivery schedules, designated site requirements, workforce availability and public acceptance of the vaccine.
Workforce requirements: The workforce we have available will significantly impact on the vaccination capacity. Surrey and Sussex LMCs have produced a draft spreadsheet to help calculate the costs of delivering this service, they have noted that this is an optimistic calculation as it makes a number of assumptions, does not take into consideration all costings and is based on the limited information about the ES. Included in the Londonwide LMCs spreadsheet is a further tool we have produced – a calculator to determine your vaccine capacity based on the workforce available, which considers the financial envelop available to deliver this, alongside the cost of providing this service. Practices will need to consider the optimal model for the workforce they have available to deliver the vaccination. We have discussed with some nursing colleagues how many vaccinators they feel it would be safe for them to support. From these discussions a potential model is to form teams based on a GP/PCN supervising four HCPs who deliver the vaccine, with an administrator for every two vaccinators. If people are required to be observed post vaccination this may require an additional person for every four vaccinators. As part of the planning phase practices should be discussing with their teams what is the optimal model to safely address their requirements.