The NHS must urgently rethink its vaccination priorities, ensuring that frontline NHS staff are protected against the new variant COVID-19, the British Medical Association has said.

Access to vaccines continues to be “sporadic,” the BMA said, citing reports from its members across the country. BMA chair Dr Chaand Nagpaul wrote to NHS England chief executive Sir Simon Stevens stating there needs to be “clear prioritisation” for doctors and other frontline staff.

The original priority list for vaccination placed doctors fourth – with the emphasis being on protecting the very elderly and care staff. It was drawn up before the emergency of the highly infectious new strain. The BMA said half its members in a recent survey said that staff sickness was having an impact on patient care. The latest survey involved more than 7,000 doctors and medical students in the week before the holiday.

Dr Nagpaul said: “If healthcare workers fall ill from being infected and are unable to work it will be devastating for the health service at this time of critical pressures and will compound the problems hospitals and GP practices are already struggling with regarding staff shortages. There is also a very real risk of this impeding the roll-out of the vaccine itself which is reliant on delivery by health care staff.”

“We understand that current stocks of vaccines are limited, but with the realistic hope of further supplies and new vaccines which may be soon approved for use in the NHS, now is the time that we need assurance that frontline staff will be vaccinated in a clearly defined systematic and prioritised way.”

Doctors’ Association president Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden said: “Frontline staff have not been prioritised for the vaccine, and our colleagues are getting sick one after the other. It is a catastrophe. Reluctance to go back into lockdown and not wanting to cancel Christmas will no doubt have cost lives.”

The UK yesterday reported 53,135 new cases of infection and 414 deaths. The numbers were partly increased by delayed reports from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland but represented nearly 12,000 more than Monday’s peak. England reported 20,426 COVID-19 patients in hospital on Monday, more than a thousand more than in the first wave peak. The country had 1,641 patients on mechanical ventilation compared with a maximum of 2,881 in the first peak.