Dr Mark Howcutt has provided the latest update from Haddenham Medical Centre – Monday 20th September 2021
Children's flu nose spray vaccine
We know that NHS England has sent letters to some parents asking them to contact their GP practice to book a flu nose spray vaccine for their young children. We are pleased to advise that we have had our first delivery of the children's flu vaccine given by nose spray.
We will be offering this to all children who were aged 2 or 3 years old on the 31st of August 2021 (so were born between 1 September 2017 and 31 August 2019). Older children will be offered the flu vaccine at school.
As the vaccine is delivered to the practice by the NHS in small batches, we cannot invite all parents to book appointments for their children at the same time. We will be sending text messages out to parents in batches inviting them to book an appointment when we know we have available vaccines.
For now, please only ring reception to book an appointment when you have been invited. We will receive enough vaccines to offer this to all children in this age group.
Adult flu vaccines
Our deliveries of adult flu vaccines have been delayed by the national road freight challenges. We expect to receive them in the next week or two. As soon as we have confirmation of when they are arriving, we will start adding clinics for patients to book and let everyone know by text message, here on Haddenham dotNet, on our Facebook page and practice website and via the Patient Participation Group.
COVID boosters
We are delighted to announce that we will be joining forces again with GP practices across the Aylesbury Vale to provide COVID booster jabs at the Stoke Mandeville Stadium Vaccination Centre.
We will be providing a Pfizer vaccine booster regardless of which vaccine you had for the first two jabs (unless you have a medical reason that you cannot have the Pfizer jab). The booster vaccine can only be given after six months from the second dose.
We will be inviting patients in turn starting with the oldest and working down the at-risk groups as directed by the NHS and as we did with the initial course of vaccination. Please do not ring reception to book an appointment until you have been invited.
Ongoing challenges and thanks
We remain busy and this continues to be a difficult time for the whole NHS working under very challenging circumstances. We are dealing with large numbers of patients ringing the surgery and are getting even busier as the autumn and winter infections begin to increase.
We are continuing to see patients face to face in the surgery after telephone triage when this is clinically needed as we have done throughout the pandemic. Our work on the vaccination programmes described above is in addition to our normal work.
We are grateful for the messages of support from our patients. This is especially welcome when there is such negativity in some of the media against GPs and their teams, and sadly reports up and down the country of verbal and physical abuse directed at them.
Everyone is working to provide the best we can for patients with the resources we have. Please continue to be kind to our team and all those working in the NHS.
