GP practices apologise for elderly waiting for COVID-19 vaccine in 'very cold conditions'

Hatfield GP practices have apologised after some elderly patients were waiting for their coronavirus vaccines in near-freezing temperatures last week. 

Four Hatfield GP practices, Burvill House Surgery, Lister House Surgery, Potterells Medical Centre, and Wrafton House Surgery, started the COVID vaccination programme last Thursday at the University of Hertfordshire’s College Lane campus. 

Sarah Ellingworth, on behalf of the Hatfield GP practices, said: "I am writing to apologise to those Hatfield patients who had to wait outside in very cold conditions on the first day of our COVID vaccination delivery programme last week.

"NHS England has asked to GP’s to use a new IT system to record the vaccine delivery but there are significant problems with the operation and speed of this software and this has caused delays in administering the vaccine. These delays have been experienced all over the country.

"In Hatfield we have developed a workaround for this and day two and three of our first programme ran very smoothly and patients did not have to wait beyond a couple of minutes.

"I want to reassure patients that they will not have to queue in the cold – and we will continue to get all those booked in with an appointment vaccinated as quickly as we can."