Halifax doctor warns Covid-19 vaccination hold up will reduce people's confidence

The warning comes as Prime Minister Boris Johnson said it would be “very hard” to meet the Government’s February target of vaccinating everyone in the top four priority groups.

Supplies of the vaccine have been irregular due to upgrade work at Pfizer’s Belgium factory, which will enable it to step up production from 1.5 billion vaccines in 2021 to two billion.

Dr Geetha Chandrasekaran, a GP in Halifax, said cancelling appointments can cause patients to lose confidence.

She said: “Cancelling their appointments and not being able to give them a new appointment can be quite confusing for some patients.”

It can then be difficult to re-book them when the practice knows they are getting the vaccine.

“Sometimes patients might need to coordinate with relatives to take them to the appointment, which can be hard to do at short notice.”

The news comes as leaders in Yorkshire say the region is being punished for its successful Covid-19 vaccine rollout, after it was revealed that supplies of the vaccine could be diverted from the county to regions that have failed to vaccinate as many people.

NHS England would not confirm reports that supplies to GP practices in the region would be halved in order to help areas like London, which are further behind in their vaccination efforts, but it did say “targeted deliveries” to those areas were being made.

According to the latest data, a total of 67 per cent of people aged 80 and over in the North East and Yorkshire had received one dose of the vaccine, the highest rate in England, and a further 12 per cent had received two doses in the week to January 17.

However, these figures disguised regional variation as areas in the North East were far ahead of Yorkshire.

For example, West Yorkshire and Harrogate had vaccinated 64 per cent of over-80s with one dose and a further 13 per cent with two.

An NHS spokesperson said: “All available vaccine doses are being delivered to vaccination sites and every GP-led vaccination site is receiving a delivery this week.

“To ensure all of those people in the top priority groups can get vaccinated quickly, targeted deliveries are being made to areas where there are more people left to vaccinate in the priority cohorts.”

The most recent figures for the week up to 17 January showed that the South West had overtaken the North East and Yorkshire for vaccinating the largest percentage of the population.

In the South West, 7,371 vaccines per 100,000 people were delivered compared with 7,192 per 100,000 in the North East and Yorkshire. At the bottom end of the scale, London delivered only 4,199 vaccines per 100,000 people.

Speaking in the Commons, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: “The challenge to supply is, essentially, that we have a lumpy supply.”

And he said while manufacturers were “working incredibly hard to deliver the supply as fast as possible”, he added: “It is challenging and therefore it isn’t possible to give certainty as far out as many GPs and those delivering on the ground would like – because the worst thing would be to give false certainty.”

Asked directly about the situation in Yorkshire, Mr Hancock said: “We’ve got to make sure that vaccination is fair right across the UK and some parts of the country, including parts of the North East and Yorkshire, have gone really fast early on, which is terrific.

“And we do have to make sure the vaccination programme is there everywhere, so everyone in the top four groups can receive that offer of a vaccine by the 15th of February. We will deliver on that.”

An NHS spokesperson said: “All available vaccine doses are being delivered to vaccination sites and every GP-led vaccination site is receiving a delivery this week.

“To ensure all of those people in the top priority groups can get vaccinated quickly, targeted deliveries are being made to areas where there are more people left to vaccinate in the priority cohorts.”