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Trying to get flu and Covid booster vaccine.

Posted By MrFraggle

"Trying to get flu and Covid booster vaccine."

About: NHS Lothian / Covid 19 Vaccination Programme

(as a service user),

Yesterday I decided to see if I could find out what is happening with me getting a the flu jab and yet again my health board has surpassed itself in its inefficiency.

I found a number to call.

Number 1, please call back later.

Number 2, ditto.

Number 3, I got an answer machine.

Number 4 bingo got through to someone who told me I was booked for the 11th of November at the Highland Centre but as yet the letter had not gone out.

Now this is right the other side of Edinburgh and then some and not a journey easily made by public transport. I asked for something a little closer to where I stayed and even though I had confirmed my address this person did not know what part of Edinburgh it was as it seems that NHS Lothian have contracted out the work of allocating jab appointments and the person I was speaking to was in England. (???)

I asked them to go through the areas in Edinburgh which were doing the jabs and eventually I got Leith, just down the road but not until the 27th of November I also managed to get the booster added.

Nice person on the phone and they agreed that the rollout has been a bit of a shambles but as I said, I think my health board is an inefficient bureaucracy even in normal times.

This just gets better and better, received the letter for my original appointment with a contact number and as discovered that my new appointment is on a Saturday I decided to phone and confirm this.

Bloody good job I did as someone had managed to delete the appointment and there was nothing available anywhere unless I wanted to take a day trip out of Edinburgh to get the flu and booster jabs.

No idea when I will get an appointment now as I need to keep phoning weekly in the hope of getting an appointment.

Who is organising this, is this another example of woeful organisational abilities during the pandemic?

I have absolutely no idea when I will get the jab now, preferably somewhere local and I will be starting cancer treatment shortly making me even more vulnerable, well done NHS Lothian. 

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Update posted by MrFraggle (a service user)

The fact that no one from NHS Lothian has commented on my post says everything you need to know about the way they are handling the flu/booster roll out which I feel has been/is shambolic though I very much doubt that NHS Lothian will see it that way.

One must note that Edinburgh had the lowest roll out of the first two COVID vaccinations in Scotland and in my opinion NHS Lothian seems to have learnt nothing from that poor performance.

Response from Karen Fraser, Patient Experience Officer, Patient Experience Team, NHS Lothian 2 years ago
Karen Fraser
Patient Experience Officer, Patient Experience Team,
NHS Lothian

Submitted on 09/11/2021 at 14:30
Published on Care Opinion at 16:18

Dear Mr Fraggle

Thank you for sharing your feedback via care opinion. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your story. I am very sorry for the difficulties you are experiencing arranging your flu and covid booster vaccines and can understand how frustrating this will have been for you. From your story it sounds as though you have contacted the national helpline number and I wonder if you might like to contact the local helpline who I hope will be able to arrange this for you. Their details are 0300 790 6296 or email loth.covidvaccenquiries@nhslothian.scot.nhs.uk If you wish to email please could you provide your full name, address, date of birth and contact telephone number.

Once again please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to you and I hope that the local team will be able to assist you.

Kind regards

Karen

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Update posted by MrFraggle (a service user)

MS Karen.

I note that you actually do not refer or accept the woeful rollout of the flu vaccines this year. Asking elderly people without transport to travel to Haddington or the Highland centre would be funny if it was not so serious, I even phoned Lothian buses to see if it were possible to get to the Highland centre easily they advised me not to try.

NHS Lothian have posed daily about local COVID vaccination centres, my local was two buses away at the conference centre, the north and north east of Edinburgh did not have a 'Local' vaccination centre yet you continued to post that we had.

I did contact the above number and was told to phone weekly in the hope that appointment became available in a place I could get to.

The whole vaccine rollout both COVID and flu have been a shambles.

I did finally get an appointment at my local health centre where I should have been asked to go to in the first place.

Response from Jeannette Morrison, Head of Patient Experience, NHS Lothian 2 years ago
Jeannette Morrison
Head of Patient Experience,
NHS Lothian

Submitted on 10/11/2021 at 18:53
Published on Care Opinion at 18:53

Dear Mr Fraggle,

Thank you for getting in touch with us again and like Karen I am very sorry to read about your difficulties in accessing your COVID and Flu vaccinations. I am however pleased to read in your post from yesterday that you have since been able to access your vaccinations via your local health centre.

We are aware that for some people, they have been allocated appointments that are further than we would hope for. We do try to appoint people to centres as close to home as possible but the scheduling system appoints people to the first available appointment and this may not be their closest location. This has been further compounded as GPs are not generally offering these vaccinations other than in specific circumstances. We have set up our local helpline to help people reschedule their appointments if they are not suitable.

I would like to apologise again that we were not able to meet your expectations in this regard. I can appreciate that this will have added to your frustrations especially as you start cancer treatment soon which I do hope goes smoothly for you.

Thank you again for sharing your feedback and please be assured that this has been shared with the senior staff who are managing the vaccination programme.

With kind regards

Jeannette

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