NHS England decision not to approve West London Medical Centre and Church Road Surgery as primary care vaccination centres
Hillingdon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) have announced the news that NHS England have decided not to approve West London Medical Centre and Church Road Surgery as primary care vaccination centres for the two available COVID-19 vaccines. NHS England, supported by Hillingdon CCG, have judged that the practices do not meet certain requirements set out to ensure maximum use of the vaccines is made. The following is a statement from the Hillingdon CCG and can be found on their website: Hillingdon CCG website.
The practices are challenging this decision and you can read their response on the West London Medical Centre website.
Statement from Hillingdon CCG
Patients may have read that the West London Medical Centre and Church Road Surgery have not been accredited as Covid vaccination centres by NHS England and that the practices are campaigning against this decision.
The CCG is taking steps to ensure that the patients in that practice are not disadvantaged and can make use of the same vaccination centres as all other Hillingdon residents. Patients will have a choice of nearby locations where they can be vaccinated.
We wanted to be clear on why West London Medical Centre and its partner practice Church Road Surgery have not been accredited as vaccination centres.
The Covid vaccination process is one of the most ambitious vaccination programmes in the history of the NHS. A huge amount of planning has gone into it and NHS England has worked out that the quickest and most effective approach is for all GPs to work together in local networks, alongside a national programme of mass vaccination centres. This means every general practice working with the neighbouring practices in its Primary Care Network (PCN) and each PCN working together.
The aim is to get as many people as we can vaccinated as quickly as possible, with no vaccine wasted. Criteria for vaccination centres published by NHS England focus on mutual support, collaboration and sharing of resources between centres, so that the maximum number of patients are vaccinated with no waste. This means each vaccination centre needs to be a shared resource locally - no practice is only vaccinating its own patients.
West London Medical Centre and Church Road Surgery have refused to be part of a PCN or to work with local PCNs, which is a key requirement for vaccination centres. They were also unable to perform the required 975 vaccines a day and were not able to provide sufficient assurance that Church Road Surgery could vaccinate patients 7 days a week from 8am-8pm.
While this is a decision taken by NHS England, it is one that the CCG fully supports.
Getting your vaccination
Please wait to be contacted by the NHS to book your vaccination. Vaccination is not a walk-in service and each patient will be contacted by the NHS when it is their turn. Once you receive your letter, you will be able to book your appointment. We expect all patients over the age of 70 and all frontline healthcare workers to have been offered a first vaccine by mid-February, in line with the national target. We will then move on to other groups as we work our way through the population.
Are you, or do you care for, an eligible vaccine patient that is a patient at this surgery? If you want to tell us your experiences or have any queries about the announcement, please contact us.
