Medical Centre Update

Latest communication from Dr Mark Howcutt, Haddenham Medical Centre

We continue to play our part in the biggest flu vaccination programme in history. As a practice, we have already given almost as many flu vaccinations in the first two months as we would normally give in the whole six-month programme.

Working with our community pharmacy colleagues, we have almost met our target for vaccines for patients over 65 years. This is an amazing achievement considering the difficulties that we and many others have had obtaining supplies of the vaccine at the start of the campaign and the additional measures needed to provide flu vaccinations in a safe way during the COVID pandemic.

But we are not complacent! We have recently received more supplies of the vaccine for those over 65 years. If you have not already had your vaccine, please book an appointment in one of our clinics. You can do this by ringing reception but please book online if you can as this will help us at a time when we are incredibly busy. If you do want to book by phone, please ring in the afternoon.

We will set up clinics for those under 65 years who are at high risk when we have received more vaccine. Unfortunately, some practices and pharmacies have booked patients into clinics and then had to cancel at short notice as the supplies of vaccine have not arrived as planned. We want to avoid this risk and so will not book patients until we are sure we have the vaccine safely in the building. We will let you know when this is possible.

While we are still busy vaccinating our patients at higher risk, we will not yet be providing flu vaccines to our patients who are 50-64 years without high-risk factors. Again, we will try to let patients know as soon as we are able to do this.

Thank you for your ongoing support and patience over this challenging time.

Dr Mark Howcutt