People aged between 56 and 59 years old can now book their Covid-19 jab online.
While the rollout to a new age bracket has not yet been formally announced by the government, the NHS booking site now allows people over 56 to pick an appointment for their first and second doses of the vaccine.
https://www.nhs.ukA screenshot of the NHS Covid-19 vaccine booking page.
Those age 56-and-over can now book alongside people who are deemed both extremely clinically vulnerable and clinically vulnerable to Covid-19, frontline health and social care workers, people with a learning disability and people who act as a main carer to someone at high risk from Covid-19.
While the expansion of the roll out hasn’t been formally announced, it appears that a number of newly-eligible people have already booked online after seeing the change reported on social media sites such as Twitter.
It emerged on Friday that more than a million people in England had now had their second dose of the Covid-19 jab, completing the course of immunisation.
A total of 1,034,068 second doses had been given by March 4, according to the latest figures from health agencies in the four nations.
Of those, 729,265 were given to people in England, along with 154,819 in Wales, 108,197 in Scotland and 41,787 in Northern Ireland.
Margaret Keenan became the first person in the world outside of a clinical trial to be vaccinated at Coventry Hospital on December 8.
Public Health England said on Friday that 21,358,815 people have now received at least one dose.
A staff nurse who held a phone to the ear of a dying patient on a Covid ward so he could say goodbye to his family has blasted the government for its “pitiful” 1% pay increase.
Alex Oldham told HuffPost UK that the NHS has had the “year from hell” and that he backed proposals for strike action in response to the gesture.
Oldham, who works in Bristol, said: “We’ve been working through a year-long pandemic where at times we’ve had nurses wearing binbags for PPE, there’s been 850 NHS workers who have died of Covid.
“Yes, we’ve had nice things like Clap for Carers on Thursdays, and when ministers have given praise and kind words, but we now know those words are hollow and not worth anything.”
The main nurses’ union is to set up a £35m industrial action fund in response to the government’s recommendation.
The council of the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) made the decision amid growing anger over the pay of health staff who have been under unprecedented pressure during the coronavirus crisis.
Dozens of healthcare workers have also been tweeting their disgust at the proposal.
PPE Selfies were so last wave.
But I’m more tired, more worn out and even more deflated after today’s news of a measly 1% pay rise for NHS Staff.
Unite, which represents tens of thousands of NHS workers, is also warning of industrial action. Some of the hardships endured by NHS workers have seen using foodbanks, moving out of family homes to live closer to the hospitals and cover staff sick leave and living in complete isolation in order to protect their families.
A survey of RCN members last year revealed that more than one in three were thinking of leaving the profession, with many citing pay as the main reason.
Oldham said: “Strike action, in whatever form that may be might have to be the only option, obviously with patient safety carefully considered.”
When asked if he was tempted to leave, Oldham replied: “It does make me consider. There are other avenues to earning more money – like being an agency nurse, but that just doesn’t sing with my values. I like the ethos of the NHS, I like how it all works and the goodwill of it. But we can’t keep running on empty.”
Oldham said he was reminded of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s vow to lead a government of substance, not gestures, adding: “Here we are, really not seeing any substance. Even as a gesture it’s pretty pitiful.
“The government also have a pledge for wanting to put an extra 50,000 nurses on the wards by the end of their term in government, but how are they going to achieve that when they are offering, in terms of retention and appealing to people, a £3.50 a week pay rise?
“That’s an extra cup of coffee. That’s what that equates to, that’s the reality. And we also have to think about the human cost of the nurses on the frontline. I’ve held a phone to the ear of a dying patient, to their relatives who are crying on the phone because they can’t come in and see them.
“This pandemic will ripple for years to come because of the PTSD that nurses and many other NHS workers will suffer. It’s a real insult, I’m absolutely fuming.
“This request for a pay rise is not driven by greed. This is driven by the fact we are exhausted. We are on our knees and we are fed up of being treated like this. We want a substantial pay rise to put food on the table, pay the mortgage and pay for childcare.”
Photo by Karwai Tang/Getty ImagesA care worker receives the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine in Borehamwood.
A man was offered a Covid jab because the NHS had recorded his height as 6cm, meaning he was classified as morbidly obese.
A similar mix-up saw a woman wrongly offered a flu vaccine because she was thought to be 57cm tall instead of 5ft 7ins, while others have also had heights of less than a metre entered in their official records.
It came to light when journalist Liam Thorp tweeted last week that he had been offered his first coronavirus vaccine ahead of schedule, and couldn’t work out why.
“I am really confused why I would be offered at this stage when many more vulnerable or at risk groups haven’t been,” the political editor of the Liverpool Echo wrote.
The confusion cleared up when he rang his GP and discovered his height had been entered as 6.2cm rather than 6ft 2ins, “giving me a BMI of 28,000”.
So I’m not getting a vaccine next week – was feeling weird about why I’d been selected ahead of others so rang GP to check. Turns out they had my height as 6.2cm rather than 6 ft 2, giving me a BMI of 28,000 😂
Cue hilarity, with some people claiming it had them “crying” with laughter and that it was “the single best tweet of the entire pandemic”.
Others chimed in with similar experiences, including one person who said she had been invited for the seasonal flu jab a few weeks ago because her height had been recorded as 57cm rather than 5ft 7ins.
Writer and performer Natasha Hodgson only realised the mix-up when she turned up to receive the jab. “The nurse was brilliant and hilarious about it – she got up my records immediately when it was clear I was not, as was recorded on my records, currently morbidly obese,” she told HuffPost UK.
″[She] scanned my file and then burst out laughing: ‘According to this, you are 57cm tall. You’re a bowling ball!’”
OH SHIT, this happened to me last week! Was flagged as being offered a free flu jab, got there to discover according to NHS records I am 57cm tall and… dense. The nurse looked at me and said “YOU’RE A BOWLING BALL!” https://t.co/jE7TbPVoK0
The mistake was corrected immediately and Hodgson was not given the flu jab. “Obviously it’s good that they’re trying to push people in high-risk groups to get seasonal jabs, but yes, it looks like it’s not quite a perfect system,” she continued.
“To be honest, if I’m 57cm tall and 9 and a half stone, I’m amazed they only want to talk to me about my flu potential.”
Another person told HuffPost UK she had received an invitation to receive the Covid-19 vaccine on Monday because her BMI had been put down as 77 – three times what doctors consider a healthy weight.
“[My GP] was completely unsure how that happened, he says it was an error and that someone just entered it wrong. It makes sense now though as the NHS have been chasing me a lot to get my flu jab!” said town planner Lois-May Chapman.
“The doctor also despite everything being cleared up now with my BMI and myself falling in a healthy weight really encouraged me to get the jab and just count myself and very lucky.”
On Sunday the government confirmed more than 15m of the most vulnerable people in the UK have now had a first dose of a Covid-19 vaccine.
Those next in line to receive the jab include all those aged between 50 and 70, as well as those aged between 16 and 64 with underlying health conditions which puts them at higher risk of serious disease and death.
Boris Johnson has set a target of May to give the first jabs to these people, who are in the remaining priority groups five to nine, as set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
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