Dr Alison George, of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP team, criticised the decision not to ‘protect staff health’.

She was responding to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidance that the age at which people are offered an NHS Covid vaccine should rise from 75 to 80 in autumn 2027.

Reducing vaccination

Dr George said: “Reducing vaccination to such a small group gives the impression to the public that we do not need to worry about Covid any more and that it can only harm the very oldest and most vulnerable in society.

“This is not the case at all and will do nothing to encourage members of the public to protect themselves and those around them from a disease that is spread easily.

“From an NHS staff member perspective it just confirms that DHSC and NHSE leaders have zero interest in protecting staff health.”

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, spoke to the BMJ about the guidance.

Vulnerable and marginalised

He said: “This issue with a raised age group again gives the wrong impression of the failure of the NHS to care for the vulnerable and marginalised.

“It also means some NHS staff will feel that their health doesn’t matter. This feels like cost cutting rather than genuine choice over health benefits and certainly affects staff at risk.

“As DAUK has said previously, it will backfire, with staff sickness and absences. This should be a choice for staff and older patients.”

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The Doctors’ Association UK is calling for a moratorium on mandatory vaccination, followed by an urgent review of current staffing levels and their implications for patient safety.

“Allowing a proper impact assessment is a responsible way forward,” said its chair, Jenny Vaughan. “Any reassurance gained for the public about staff presenting less of a risk because ‘only’ vaccinated staff will be treating them is easily offset by the added pressures this mandate will cause to an already buckling NHS.”

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single swear word summed up the feeling in my GP group chat as they went on to alert me of the Government’s announcement on Sunday to deliver a third Covid-19 booster to all adults who want one by the end of the year.

My heart sank. I understood my colleagues’ dismay as I learned of the plan to ‘pause’ routine care to prioritise the boosters. We are all too aware of the current backlogs. Waiting lists have reached record highs as nearly six million people wait, while GPs see patients deteriorate, only to need increased care and more attention from the NHS. Meanwhile, hospitals continue to struggle with capacity.

We’re all worried there’s very little resilience within the system and GPs will still be asked to soldier on despite increasing pressures.

Throughout the pandemic GPs have been grossly undermined for managing this workload and maintaining safe working practices for both patients and staff. We’ve not fully recovered from this, and the distrust it has built makes the job much harder – for some untenable.

Colleagues routinely report ‘so much anger’ from the very people they are trying to help. It’s mis-directed and continues to be fuelled by our leaders under the guise of face-to-face appointments. I long for our politicians to admit how complex the issues are around our broken healthcare system. Instead, we see GPs flitting from being the scapegoats to the solution at the whim of a press release. The impact on morale is evident and GPs are, understandably, leaving in their droves.

So why are we not saying no to this disruption? The Omicron variant is much more contagious and it’s evading the vaccine and natural immunity – but less so with a third booster. Pfizer recently announced there will be four billion BNT162b2 vaccines produced – what we currently use – and this formula is not expected to change as they’re not able to adapt to new variants and scale up fast enough.

The latest report from the Intensive Care National Audit and Research Centre shows that just over half of Covid ICU admissions in the last two months were in those who were double vaccinated. Omicron is only thought to have spread within our population in the last few weeks, so this may not simply be attributed to a new variant. Simply put, this booster programme is our best chance of more of us remaining well and out of hospitals.

Mitigations beyond vaccines may be even more important with a rapidly growing anti-vax movement. Mitigations beyond vaccines may be even more important with a rapidly growing anti-vax movement, which has surged by millions and this could have ramifications to all of our vaccine programmes. The success of vaccines depends on herd immunity.

There are whispers that Test and Trace will continue until 2025 – a good hint life with coronavirus is here to stay. It’s time to embrace this as our normal for our own sanity. The Doctors’ Association UK supports normalised mask wearing with their #MaskUp campaign and perhaps splurge on the best perfume infused alcohol gel.

GPs will, I’m sure, again heroically deliver on this booster programme but the cost has to be levelled with long-term resilience building. More people will be in dire need of care as soon as this pause reverts to play and the GPs that are left to pick up the pieces may not be able to sustain this without expecting much better working environments. This includes professional respect, a stronger focus on other safeguards against the virus and future pandemics.

We need to embrace mitigations that don’t simply build on the shoulders of a very worn workforce that have simply been trying to do their best through the pandemic.

Perhaps it’s time we come round to the idea of what responsibility we can take and ask for more non-vaccine future proofing, in the hope that we can get on with our lives.

Dr Yasotha Browne is a GP and Diversity Lead with the Doctors’ Association UK

Read the piece in Mail Plus here

The DAUK presented the survey findings in a cross-party briefing on 3 November, which involved representatives from the Conservatives and Labour, as well as various smaller parties.

Dr Vinesh Patel, GP partner and DAUK committee member said:

‘Following our roundtable meeting with MPs on Tuesday, we are proud to have been able to raise the issues highlighted by primary care staff respondents in our survey. 

‘We discussed issues such as the mental health of staff, rising workloads, the GP-bashing within the media and the importance of primary care in this pandemic, and we are confident that we will be able to work together to tackle these issues going forward.’

The briefing made six policy recommendations to the group of MPs and peers:

1) A commitment to urgent ring-fenced funding for primary care in line with that provided to acute trusts.

2) An urgent review of the Public Health England PPE guidelines and revision to be in line with WHO recommendations and an urgent review of PPE stockpiles with provision for primary care/

3) Urgent recognition of the issue of digital deprivation and a review of support needed for the most deprived areas to ensure that the most vulnerable patients are able to access services.

4) Ring-fenced funding for 24-hour mental health support for all NHS workers, including primary care staff across the devolved nations.

5) Urgent action on lack of access to flu vaccinations, and a cash injection to ensure GPs can carry out a Covid vaccination programme, if and when required

6) MP support to combat the damaging narrative that GPs have not been open during the pandemic.

Read the full Pulse article here.