Covid vaccine centre volunteers are left ‘standing around’ because of ‘rigid’ NHS priority rules: Nobel prize-winning scientist Sir Paul Nurse says UK MUST speed up jab drive
- Slots have been left unused at the Francis Crick Institute’s vaccine hub in London
- Sir Paul Nurse, 72, said hundreds of volunteers have been left standing around
- The centre could vaccinate 1,000 people a day but are only seeing 300 patients
Coronavirus vaccine centres may be standing idle because of rigid rules urging local health bosses to stick to the priority list, a Nobel prize-winning scientist fears.
Sir Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute in London, claimed hundreds of volunteers have been left ‘standing around with little to do’ at his centre’s make-shift clinic, forcing them to close at weekends.
The 72-year-old said they were ‘not alone’, however, and that other hubs across the capital were running low on patients to vaccinate.
Writing in a piece for The Times urging the UK to speed up the vaccination roll-out, he questioned whether ‘adherence to moving through the priority groups’ was so ‘rigid’ that it was slowing progress.
Sir Paul also asked whether officials were purposely limiting appointments in some areas to ‘ensure every part of the country progresses at the same rate’ and to ‘avoid criticism of a postcode lottery’.
It comes as ministers are hunting for the final two million vulnerable Brits who have not yet come forward for their Covid vaccine.
The Francis Crick Institute’s vaccination centre in London is standing idle because of rigid priority rules Sir Paul Nurse (pictured) has said
The Government has made it its mission to inoculate the 15million Brits most at risk of dying from the coronavirus by Monday, which includes everyone over 70, care home residents, their carers and frontline NHS staff, as well as patients classed as clinically extremely vulnerable, such as those with terminal illnesses.
But while 13million in the most vulnerable categories have had the jab, including 90 per cent of over-70s and care home residents, the Prime Minister yesterday warned there is still a group numbering roughly twice the population of Birmingham who had yet to receive one.
Sir Patrick Vallance warned last night that lockdown-loosening plans will have to go even slower if large numbers of vulnerable people remained unvaccinated.
Some areas of the country leading the way in the vaccine roll-out have taken it on themselves to start jabbing under-70s — including in Manchester and London.
But No10 has not officially given local health teams the green light to move onto the next stage of the roll-out, which includes everyone else above the age of 50.
Critics yesterday said the UK’s roll-out had ‘hit a wall’ and urged the Government to expand jabs to a wider audience to reach six million people a week.
Addressing the claims, Sir Paul suggested Britain could devolve decision-making to individual vaccination centres when national referrals are low.
This would allow centres to prioritise other important groups including teachers, police officers and firefighters to receive jabs when slots remain vacant.
He said it is important to act soon because ‘every day that is missed costs lives and livelihoods’.
The Francis Crick Institute’s vaccination centre in London has the capacity to vaccinate 1,000 people a day but is only seeing 300 at most
Writing in The Times, Sir Paul said: ‘Speed is essential. Vaccinating faster will slow the spread of infection and reduce the risk of variants arising because larger numbers of people will be vaccinated more rapidly.
‘Increasing flexibility, developing agility, empowering the local, will get more patients through the door and get the virus more quickly under control.
‘Science has provided us with the tools to move forward. There is no time to be lost — we must vaccinate even faster.’
Crick scientists have joined NHS colleagues in an effort vaccinate up to 1,000 people a day but are at most injecting 300 patients daily.
Elderly people and patients with underlying health conditions are among the top four priority groups which make up 15million set to be vaccinated by February 15
Sir Paul said leftover vaccines have been left unused in the fridge at the vaccination centre, which has been forced to close on weekends because it has no patients.
Other Covid vaccination centres across London are experiencing similar demand shortages, he said.
The John Scott hub in Hackney has had to reduce its opening hours because not enough people are coming forward for the jab.
The centre, which is open to patients from 40 GP surgeries, claimed ‘really slow patient uptake’ forced it to close at 2pm on three days last week.
Despite its small population in the global standings, the UK has administered a whopping 13.5million out of 146million doses given out internationally – almost 10 per cent of all the world’s jabs so far.
Another 414,973 Britons received their first or second dose of the Covid vaccine on Tuesday, up 10 per cent on the 376,922 jabs recorded the same time last week.
But this was a marked slowdown from the week before when the number administered jumped by 20 per cent.
The Adam Smith Institute think-tank told MailOnline that while the programme had been a success so far, there was ‘no excuse’ for blips, because ‘the virus doesn’t sleep – the virus keeps spreading’.
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