Scotland's 'convoluted' vaccine order system is slowing roll-out, GP leader warns

Scotland's "convoluted" Covid vaccine ordering system is slowing down the roll-out, a GP leader in Nicola Sturgeon's backyard has said as John Swinney insisted there was no "bottleneck."

John Montgomery, chair of the South Glasgow GP committee, said family doctors would "very much" be able to accelerate vaccinating their patients if they could order directly from the distributor rather than going through health boards.

He said the lack of supply was "very frustrating" and backed calls from the British Medical Association (BMA) for the Scottish Government to "streamline" the process.

Despite only 334,871 of the 600,000 doses delivered to Scotland having been administered, he said some practices in his area were yet to receive their first shipment.

Dr Montgomery said GPs already place direct orders for seasonal flu vaccines and the change would help them plan ahead for the vaccination of the next group. He complained they were only told two days ago to prepare for 75 to 79-year-olds.

Mr Swinney, the Deputy First Minister, said the SNP administration would consider the BMA's request but added: "We're confident in the existing arrangements."

However, the Scottish Tories raised further concerns about the timetable slipping again after a vaccine supply update sent to medics in Greater Glasgow and Clyde said doses for the over-70s would reach GPs in the first week of February.

This would give them less than a fortnight to vaccinate this group, and the clinically vulnerable, by the Feb 15 target date. There are 580,000 people in this cohort across Scotland.

The row broke out as the Scottish Government launched an information campaign encouraging people to be vaccinated when they are offered a jab.

The "roll up your sleeves" campaign emphasised the importance and safety of the vaccine, while setting out the details of the priority list.

A further 24,962 people were vaccinated in Scotland on Wednesday, it emerged yesterday, down slightly on the previous day's total of 25,327.

This compared with 318,151 in England, where large groups of GPs order their vaccine supplies directly. The English total was nearly 13 times Scotland despite it only having around 10 times the population.

England has so far administered 465 vaccines per 100,00 people, around 39 per cent higher than the Scottish figure of 335.

Nicola Sturgeon - who is also the Glasgow Southside MSP - has blamed her government's decision to focus more on care homes, which take longer to vaccinate, for the slower progress to date.

But Scotland's GPs have continued to complain of patchy supply and the Telegraph disclosed that the BMA wants them to have the power to bypass health boards and order their own supplies.

Dr Andrew Buist, chair of the BMA's Scottish GP committee, said the move would "streamline" the process. He added: "We should cut out unnecessary layers and steps."

Health boards currently pass GPs' orders to NHS Scotland's National Procurement services, which in turn advises its "distribution partner", the healthcare firm Movianto.

Dr Montgomery told BBC Radio Scotland: "It's been very frustrating in general practice. This is something that is quite clearly a national priority.

"General practice, GPs and and our teams can move very very efficiently as soon as the vaccine is in their fridges, and it's a little frustrating that we're having to go through quite a convoluted procurement process to get that vaccine into our fridges."

Pressed what changes the Scottish Government should make to speed up the roll-out, he said: "First of all, allow us to basically order directly.

"Although our practice has done our over-80s, there are many other practices from south Glasgow who are equally keen to do it and are still waiting on their first supply of the vaccine."

The supply update to Glasgow's GPs said: "Vaccine supplies for the next cohorts will follow in the week of Feb 1, though this will also be brought forward wherever possible.

"This allocation is based initially on your number of registered patients age 75 -79, with additional allocation based on number of shielding patients expected to follow shortly after."

Donald Cameron, the Scottish Tories' Shadow Health Secretary, said: "GPs and the BMA Scotland have warned all week that they are not getting vaccine supplies quickly enough.

"This letter raises even more troubling concerns that the SNP's vaccine roll-out is going too slowly."

Douglas Ross, the Scottish Tory leader, said hundreds of thousands of doses "are sitting in depots and collection points."

Mr Swinney said: "We'll continue to talk to GPs about those routes. We're confident in the existing arrangements that we have in place but we are of course very happy to engage in further discussion to answer any of these questions to make sure that the supply of vaccine is as smooth and as effective as it possibly can be."

Pressed why Scotland needs two layers of management to regulate supply, with GP orders processed by both health boards and NHS Scotland's National Procurement agency, Mr Swinney said the structures create "fairness across the whole country" and regional consistency of supply.

Jason Leitch, the national clinical director, said "a level of control" had to be exerted on a finite supply or it would be "uneven throughout the country."

A Scottish Government spokesman said: "As set out on a number of occasions, including by the Health Secretary in Parliament, a large proportion of the vaccine supplies allocated to Scotland will not be available for distribution until the end of January.

"Assuming the expected substantial amount of the vaccine reaches us in the coming weeks, we are confident we have the mechanisms and supply routes in place to meet the targets set out in the Vaccine Deployment Plan.”

An NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde spokesman said: " This is the largest vaccine programme ever undertaken and we are working hard to ensure all GP practices receive the vaccine as quickly as possible and in line with the national deployment plan."