Cheshire health leader says vaccination offer is evergreen

Clare Watson, accountable officer for NHS Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group, said she wanted to encourage everyone to take up the offer of a jab.

She was speaking at Cheshire West and Chester Council's Covid-19 Outbreak Board on Friday, September 17.

"This is an evergreen offer so if you haven't had your vaccination, please go and get it," she said.

"And also make sure that if you've had your first you go and get your second, because that gives you the added protection.

"In terms of the over 18's, 88 per cent have had their first and 83 per cent have had their second.

"We've had a really good uptake so far in the 16 and 17-year-olds, which is about 55 per cent, which is a fantastic performance."

Ms Watson went on to explain how 94 per cent of care home staff have had their first dose, with 87 per cent having their second, but said the uptake among pregnant women was a concern.

She added: "Pregnant ladies are a group we need to do some more work on.

"We're working closely with community midwives and other providers because the current 40 per cent is lower than what we want.

"This group is often quite low as we know from the uptake for the flu vaccination programme.

"So we're making sure we're getting all the right messages across."

On the booster programme, Ms Watson said these were to be deployed flexibly and that the region was waiting for formal JCVI guidance on administering both the booster and flu jabs at the same time.

In terms of the vaccination programme for 12-15 year-olds, Ms Watson said it would be delivered by schools, running for a period of three to four weeks.

"It's not going to be run by the CCG this time, it's going to be school-based services," she said.

"It's going to be running for around three or four weeks, but they will be delivered in schools.

"There's an awful lot of work going on at the moment, because it's year 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11, depending on what age you turn 12."

On the subject of vaccines, Cllr Lynn Gibbon, one of the committee members, asked why vaccination status was not disclosed in the statistical data for the likes of hospital admissions and deaths.

She said: "We just say admissions are up, but we don't say how many of those have been vaccinated or not.

"In the same way, we say deaths are up but we don't say how many of them have been vaccinated.

"Surely that is key information to give a picture as to how successful the jabs are going."

Donald Read, Consultant in Public Health across Cheshire West and Chester, said the borough does not 'routinely have the data' that Cllr Gibbon referred to.

He said: "We don't routinely have the data on those admitted to hospital and vaccination status.

"We have some spotlight reports from our local hospitals and we do know something about that.

"There are some subtleties and complexities because what the data doesn't show is the other vulnerabilities someone might have that would make them more vulnerable to serious illness.

"What we do know is that the information we have seen locally does corelate with a number of studies on vaccination status and hospitalisation.

"It shows us is that most of the hospitalisations we're seeing are either in unvaccinated or partially vaccinated people.

"There are still some people being admitted who are fully vaccinated, but the impact of the vaccine is clear."