Covid booster vaccine programme launched

PATIENTS in Henley and South Oxfordshire are being offered the coronavirus booster vaccine.

The jabs will be administered alongside the annual flu vaccine to maximise the protection of people’s health over winter.

The programme will begin early next month, starting with those in the most vulnerable categories.

Invitations to book time slots at clinics will be sent out throughout the autumn months as appointments are available. Those who are housebound will be visited by a healthcare professional.

Staff at the Hart Surgery in Henley will administer their first vaccines at care homes from Monday, September 5 and the first clinic will be held 10 days later. There will be two big clinics on Saturdays in October.

The York Road surgery has 5,000 patients who are vulnerable and qualify for both the coronavirus and flu vaccines so the administration team will have a lot more work on top of the usual appointments.

Practice manager Sarah Moberly said: “Now that lots of mass vaccination centres have closed, we will have a lot more to do. This is why we really want to have both the covid and flu jabs done at the same time rather than having to arrange 10,000 appointments, which is a huge number.

“We are encouraging patients to use the app or send an email about vaccine appointments rather than ringing so that the admin team can deal with people’s medical appointments.”

She said it was particularly important for people to have the flu jab this year as many more than usual are expected to be affected.

Mrs Moberly said: “We usually look at Australia to see how they have been affected during the flu season so we can prepare for ours and it has been a bad year for them so we are expecting the same. It’s because we were wearing masks last year and meeting with fewer people so the flu didn’t have the chance to spread and help people’s immune systems for this year.”

The York Road surgery still does not know when it will receive the covid vaccines or whether they will be Pfizer or Moderna but the first batch of flu vaccines will arrive on September 12.

John Lisiewicz, practice manager at Sonning Common Health Centre, said: “Like with the previous vaccinations, we are encouraging all patients to take up this offer. We’ve seen in the local area and across the country that there has been a spike in positive cases recently so this will help to reduce pressure on the NHS during the cold months and boost people’s health and wellbeing.”

He said that previously patients had preferred to have the two vaccinations at the same time and this was encouraged by the NHS.

“We had the majority of patients accepting the invites to get vaccinated. We did everything possible to encourage people to take the opportunity.”

Clinics at the Wood Lane health centre will begin on Saturday, September 17.

The first people eligible for the autumn booster, which is the fifth coronavirus vaccination, are:

• Adults older than 50.

• Those aged five to 49 in a clinical risk group, including pregnant women, or who are household contacts of people with immunosuppression.

• Those aged 16 to 49 years who are carers.

• Residents and staff of a care home, frontline health and social care workers and pre-school and primary school children.

Once this programme has been completed, people in other age groups will be invited to have their jabs.