Update on Preston Park Surgery’s Vaccination programme

I had a Zoom meeting with Janak Chauhan, the Practice Manager, today and he told me the following:

The Preston Park Community PCN*, in collaboration with the HERE Social Enterprise organisation, was running a vaccination programme at St Augustines for 2 weeks before Christmas and 1 week afterwards. They vaccinated the majority of their 80+ cohort (approx 1200 patients) and their surgery healthcare workers with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and with two shots. 

However the NHS failed to pay St Augustines so the PCN has moved the whole operation to the Race Course, combining with 2 other PCNs to share the cost. This will be up and running by this Thursday when the 2nd cohort will start to be invited. Invitations to be vaccinated are sent either by text (if the surgery has the patients mobile) or by phone.

The Race Course vaccinations will be with both the Pfizer-BioNTech and the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccines. The second vaccinations will be up to 12 weeks later.

The PCN has also started vaccinating in Care Homes, with a couple already completed.

The surgeries have also started doing testing (Later Flow method) mainly for their staff.

* Preston Park Community Primary Care Network (PCN) comprises Preston Park Surgery, Beaconsfield Medical Practice, Stanford Medical Centre, Warmdene Surgery, The Haven Practice and Matlock Road Surgery.