Vaccinations
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Posts
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Why are people booking appointments for vaccinations and not turning up? Over half the world’s population don’t even have the option of receiving a vaccination and yet here people can’t even be bothered to cancel their appointment if they can’t make it, allowing someone else the chance of replacing them. These are selfish people, not only for missing the appointment but also possibly leading to a precious vaccine being left unusable and wasted.
Usual excuses, I forgot, it was a nice day didn’t think it would matter they could give it to someone else. Pick anyone.
I realise everyone has a choice but crazy that people are not getting a vaccination when it is clear from the data that nearly all those in hospital now with Covid are people who have not had a vaccination or only single dose.
If people who don’t turn up without good reason got a £60 fine, i bet not many would ‘forget’
I could not wait to get mine and i feel safer now. I am worried about the Delta variant and the cases just over the border with people going back and too there.
So the answer to why are people booking appointments for vaccinations and not turning up? is that they are selfish b@stards who don’t give a flock about anyone but themselves.
It seems rather odd that 400 didn’t turn up to just one centre. I wonder if that is the case for other centres.
I received a letter for my appointments but now younger people are pretty much being told to turn up. I wonder if it would be better to go back to the original plan.
I received a text message for my first jab and a letter for the 2nd one.
Perhaps ‘The 400’ didn’t receive either ?
Sadly, there will be some people who are plain irresponsible. And the result of this is that it will prolong the community circulation of a mutating virus, which will have an impact on all our lives either directly, or in the form of extended restrictions.
However, not all the people who miss appointments will fall into this category. I know of someone for example who received a text, not a call, for an appointment at the Local Vaccine Centre set for the following day. Due to work commitments, it was physically not possible to make that appointment. She called the text number back and the appropriate number from the NHS website and either got repeatedly cut-off or could not get an answer. In any other circumstance, this would be annoying. Knowing the importance of the vaccines and of keeping appointments, she continued to take time out from work and try the numbers throughout the day. Eventually she got through and put the appointment back to a later time. I don’t know how many out of ‘the 400′ will fall into this category, I know it won’t be all of them, but it won’t help.
Far be it from me to level any criticism of the North Wales excellent vaccine roll-out effort, for which I am personally extremely appreciative of. But it was obvious from that experience that people will miss their appointments, as there must be many who, with the best of intentions, will simply be unable to re-schedule their appointments set for them in this way. And, with less than 24 hours’ notice, not everyone will even pick up their text before the appointment. I don’t know how other vaccine centres handle their appointments or how many appointments are missed, and how big a problem this is across the region?
I wouldn’t want to overburden already stretched centre staff with additional administration, but if the admin staff don’t have the capacity to actually speak to all patients, surely basic software exists whereby the text could ask the recipient to either reply ‘Yes’ to the text to confirm attendance, or give advice as to what to do if it needs to be re-scheduled, and to process the results. No-one wants to see missed appointment opportunities, or worse, wasted vaccines. This would give centres a better idea of how many extra appointments they could make to cover those who can’t attend. Having people turn up ad hoc after 5pm to fill any vacant slots for that day can’t be the best way to handle missed appointments and speed up the roll-out to everyone. Most people will want to do the right thing. For those who have failed to attend without good reason, send them an automatic communication to contact their GP, with a copy to the GP Surgery. Covid vaccines, and boosters for everyone, are here to stay. GP Surgeries seem to have a different approach, either texting asking to call back, or phoning direct (as Strathmore did in my case), or by letters.
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