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Know your QIV from your TIV? – PM Polly

Know your QIV from your TIV? - PM PollyBy PM Polly

The time of year has arrived where I can no longer resist temptation and I have to buy myself yet another woolly hat.  This one is red, a slightly different shade of red to the other… red woolly hat I own.  It’s also the time of year where my wardrobe appears to only consist of vest tops, sandals and summer dresses.  It’s an annual mystery as to where the jumpers and cardigans I owned last year disappeared to.

I will, of course, find them in storage under the spare bed in approximately June. Next year.

Winter.

We’re hurtling along to Winter.

As a practice manager, of course, I have known it was coming from around May because since that date almost every other day I receive an e-mail about flu. Influenza. QIV. TIV. FLUAD. An inbox full of details of over 65s, what quantifies a 65 year old, how I should prioritise my patients, who should get the NEW vaccine, I get a myriad of emails of what vaccine the 2yr old to 17yr olds should have along with the diagrams of which children in-between the 2yr old to 17yr olds should get their vaccine at school. I get PGDs and recommended PSDs. I get more information on delivery dates and schedules and changes to the original emails about who I should prioritise. I receive emails on what a ‘carer’ is and then what a ‘carer’ isn’t and which ‘carers’ I can vaccinate and which ones should go to the pharmacy. I’m told to vaccinate all my staff… or else. I get the pharmacist asking me to put up his marketing poster so he can give our patients the flu vaccine instead. I get more emails from our flu coordinator (who frankly I think sleeps standing up)… now about the intranasal flu vaccine too and who we should prioritise while also letting us know we can’t actually get in enough vaccines for the population that needs vaccinating.  There’s also the email about flu vaccines for those with an egg allergy and emails with videos for our TV screens and some colourful posters that we need to print out ourselves, despite having no colour printers.

Now we are a month or so in and winter chaos this time has started early because as almost every practice manager feared – we are/have run/ning out of the new vaccines, no matter how many emails we received guaranteeing we wouldn’t. We are the ones running the flu campaign year after year after year and we knew it would happen. We now face patients’ complaints on top of the patients’ complaints we were already getting. Mr Roberts is not happy to be told he is not a priority. Mr Roberts wants his flu vaccine now.

The emails keep coming, contradictory ones advising that at no point can we give the QIV instead of a TIV. Yet later advising if a patient insists on it then we could perhaps give the TIV instead of a QIV if they are between 65 and 74. However, we have to sit with the patient and explain to them the differences between the vaccine and make sure they understand the decision they’re making, despite the fact we barely understand ourselves why there are two different vaccines when one is clearly more effective than the other.

We also receive advice like… if we run out of the vaccines, we can send our patients to the pharmacy… because who needs funding to keep a GP practice sustainable?!

The chaos is also now seeping through to the media and the best thing about all this is – guess where the media tell the patients to go and query why there’s no vaccine for them. The supplier who is unable to supply? The Health Board who issue the guidelines? The Government who decided on the vaccines? Don’t be silly – go and see your GP practice.  OF COURSE!

We haven’t even got to Halloween yet, however, I don’t need a white faceless ghost or a black devil-horned monster to frighten me. I work in General Practice. I’m scared already.

By PM Polly

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Topics trending in the forum:
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PM Polly

Experienced Practice Manager doing my best to stay sane.

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