Achilles Leith

So my new location is in Leith at the Community Treatment Centre. The staff are lovely, friendly and very efficient and effective. The clinic is very busy, indeed it is the busiest vaccine centre in Edinburgh city. However the setup and communication has not been so good.

The centre has only three vaccination stations with admin and volunteer support to register and guide patients. Unfortunately, as our opening hours have been increased, rightly, to cope with demand, the admin and volunteer support has not always followed. This has made the end of the day problematic and chaotic at times.

It is also not always clear who is in charge on any given day or shift which, with many of the staff being very experienced and self starting professionals, is not much of an issue but could become one if we have a problem to deal with that is not readily or easily resolved.

There are also communication issues about what vaccines should be delivered to which groups. This has changed from time to time but the communication of changes has been haphazard and sporadic coming at times from admin staff, volunteers, or on handwritten notes on the vaccine fridge, none of which are satisfactory.

There is also some frustration with boosters and flu jabs. We started giving boosters to frail and elderly patients who had appointments elsewhere that they were unable to attend. Disappointingly we were told that we could not give them their flu jab at the same time despite this being a recommendation wherever possible. More recently we have been told to stop giving any boosters at all and only give first and second vaccine doses. This feels quite frustrating for staff to be turning vulnerable people away and/or not vaccinating those same people as fully as possible in one visit.

It all feels a little unsatisfactory at the moment but once again I do appreciate that NHS Lothian is trying to manage yet another large scale change in vaccine delivery as smoothly as possible and I am hopeful that all of these issues will be resolved in the near future.

Meanwhile on a personal note I have recently torn my left Achilles tendon and as a result been strapped into an enormous support boot for a good number of weeks to come. Happily I have established a satisfactory method of getting my uniform on over my boot and hope to be able to continue vaccinating from a mostly seated position over the next few months. Wish me luck.



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