A leading medical professor believes that NHS bureaucrats are standing in the way of a high-speed mass vaccination programme which could see the whole of the UK vaccinated in just five days.
Speaking in The Times, Sir John Bell, regius chair of medicine at the University of Oxford, believes the NHS has the capacity to vaccinate en masse, and if they were left to do so it would prevent many more Covid-19 deaths.
“The NHS has the theoretical capacity to immunise everybody in five days if they want to, but I don’t get the sense they are really motivated,” he said.
Continuing, “did you see the list of things you have to do to volunteer to help the inoculation programme? To impose it on people who are just sticking a needle in an arm is bonkers.”
“I think the frontline medics certainly see it as an emergency, those guys are working harder than anyone I’ve ever seen. They are eyewateringly good, but you don’t get the [same] sense from the hierarchy in the NHS, the bureaucrats.”
According to a government website, prospective volunteers must:
- live in England
- be over the age of 18
- use a smartphone
- consider their own health condition in case they are clinically vulnerable
- be able to “go on duty as much as you possibly can
Dr Richard Vautrey, GP committee chair of the British Medical Association agrees with the sentiments of Sir Bell saying: “The NHS has for too long been plagued by bureaucracy, and we need a drastic slashing of red tape to ensure that everyone who can safely administer vaccines, and is willing to help with the effort, is allowed to do so.
“The vaccination programme is the most powerful weapon we have in our armoury in the war against the pandemic, and NHS staff stand ready to deploy it. Give us the vaccines and flexibility and we will do it.”
