Vaccine Available for Local Over-80s

You are eligible if:

– You are a Tyntesfield Medical Group patient registered at Tower House, Brockway, Backwell or Long Ashton

– You are over the age of 80’s (No exceptions can be made)

– You are able to attend Brockway Medical Centre, 8 Brockway, Nailsea, BS48 1BZ for both doses of the vaccination. None of our other premises are able to offer the vaccination.

You cannot receive this first vaccination if:

“We are receiving a further delivery of Coronavirus vaccine for the over 80 year olds which we will administer before the New Year.

Please read the following information carefully to understand who will receive it and how we should be contacted.

This will be the second of three deliveries of the first dose of vaccine for the over 80’s. With the first delivery we vaccinated approximately 1000 people over the past weekend. We will do the same with the second delivery which will leave approximately 500 people we will be able to vaccinate with the third delivery when we receive it.

Following Government directives everyone who has passed their 80th birthday is being treated with equal priority. It doesn’t matter if you or your loved one is 83, 87 or 93 you are equally important to us and have the same opportunity to receive the vaccine before we move on to vaccinating younger age groups.

We know everyone wants to receive the vaccine as soon as possible but if you are not successful this time be patient we will get to you very soon.

We know that waiting is both frustrating and upsetting for people but no one should consider for one moment taking that out on our hard working staff. Whilst the vast majority have been amazingly supportive of our efforts and understand the massive logistical challenge we face some callers and visitors to our premises have vented their anger and been downright rude and offensive to our staff – that is not acceptable behaviour, is totally unjustified and damaging to the goodwill and incredible effort of our team.

Everyone needs to understand that both staff and volunteers are working flat out for the community to get this vaccine administered, working 12hr days with just a 15 minute break for some. We didn’t have to accept a second delivery of vaccine before the New Year but our staff have chosen to give up precious time with their families to make it happen for the sake of the community so please show them the respect they deserve.

We have very short windows of opportunity from notification of a delivery to get 1000 eligible patients booked in for vaccination a few days later. This means we use a mixed communication strategy to get our message to patients. Sending letters out inviting patients to contact us to make an appointment is not a viable option when we have just days to fill 1000 appointments. We do telephone eligible patients but cold calling is a very slow process with phones going un-answered and when they are answered patients are often un-prepared for the call. We text patients but less than half of our over 80’s have registered a mobile phone number with us. Consequently we supplement our outgoing calls and text messages with a call out to the community using our website www.tyntesfield.nhs.uk, Facebook and Twitter asking that you alert your eligible over 80yr old friends, neighbours and family that our dedicated booking lines are open. The lines will be incredibly busy, there will be engaged tones, there will be disappointed patients who don’t get through to make an appointment this time but we will book in around 1000 patients to deliver every drop of this precious vaccine to you. Once we receive the third delivery we can focus in on the remaining 500 or so patients before moving onto the younger patients.

We will be vaccinating the over 80’s from 8am to 8pm daily on Wednesday 30th and Thursday 31st December.

Whatever time and day of the week a patient is offered for their first appointment an appointment for the second dose will be booked for exactly three weeks later, at the same time of the day and on the same day of the week. No other variation is possible. If the patient cannot accept both appointments as offered then we have to cancel the process and the patient will have to make a further attempt to book their vaccination at another time.

For example: If a patient is offered the first vaccination appointment at 9am on Wednesday 30th December the second appointment will take place at exactly the same time three weeks later at 9am Wednesday 20th January 2021.

In this first vaccination group, by following strict Government guidelines, we will only be vaccinating Tyntesfield Medical Group patients registered at Tower House, Brockway, Backwell or Long Ashton who are:

Over the age of 80’s (No exceptions can be made)

Are able to attend Brockway Medical Centre, 8 Brockway, Nailsea, BS48 1BZ for both doses of the vaccination. None of our other premises are able to offer the vaccination.

Patients cannot receive this first vaccination if;

• They are anaphylactic

• Have had a Flu vaccine in past 7 days

• Tested positive for C-19 in past month

• Currently symptomatic with C-19 symptoms

• Housebound

If you fulfil the above criteria in order to book you vaccination you must ring our dedicated vaccination line on 01275 866761 (not your normal booking line) between 9am and 4pm Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Outside of those hours the line will be disconnected and you will hear the message “This line is temporarily unavailable” or a voice recording. During operating hours the lines will be very busy so you may find it difficult to get through. Once all of the appointments have been filled the line will be closed and we will notify you of that through our website, Facebook and Twitter.

We know that a large proportion of our over 80’s patients will not be conversant with our website, Facebook or Twitter pages. We are trying to contact all patients individually but the quickest way we can deal with booking appointments in the short timescale available to us is if the community plays a role in letting their over 80’s neighbours and family know about these clinics as soon as possible.

Lawrie Lewis

Executive Manager”