Practices are beginning to withdraw from the COVID-19 vaccination programme to concentrate on basic services, it has been reported.

The Independent quotes examples of practices and primary care networks that have opted out of further vaccination responsibilities. Many networks made a decision in March not to sign up for phase 2 of the programme, it reports. The trend is expected to accelerate in response

Dr Michelle Drage, chief executive of Londonwide Local Medical Committees, said: “For many groups of GP practices the decision to opt out was driven by the release of pent-up demand from patients who had been holding off seeking GP care.”

She said there should be “an immediate end to over-promising to patients by national leaders, and an honest conversation about what the service can safely deliver with finite resources in the face of a still very live pandemic and the increased ill health that will follow it. General practice, with its capacity already overloaded before the pandemic, is on its knees.”

Writing to practices last week, Dr Drage stated: “We have far too many GPs, GPNs, PMs and pharmacists and administrative staff who are functioning at or beyond the limits of the human function curve. This is unacceptable and cannot carry on like this. It is not possible for practices to continue to deliver all that is expected of them. It was so before the pandemic, and it most certainly is not so now. With the rapidly rising case numbers of the B1.617.2 variant now in our midst, it is important to know that under the above Contract Regulations you do have the flexibility to manage and deliver your essential services in a manner determined by your practice, taking into account your capacity and workload pressures, in order to provide a safe service to your patients that is consistent with your duty of care to your staff, yourselves and each other.”

Dr Ollie Hart, clinical director of Heeley Plus Primary Care Network, Sheffield, said: “We’re very proud of what we’ve done and moved very quickly to vaccinate 16,000 of our highest at-risk people, twice. It’s taken a lot of commitment and resources, and it’s a huge volume of work. We feel that volume of work needs to be redirected back to our main purpose in caring for our patients, especially amid the rising demand. It should be much simpler to organise and deliver vaccines to the younger, more mobile groups, and it now feels right to pass on that responsibility.”