Written Evidence Submitted by Dr Aubrey Bristow

(CLL0022)

Given the supposition that mass vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 is the only way to terminate the economic and healthcare damage to the UK, I am trying to gain traction on planning to avoid delay in delivering and administering Covid vaccine once one is licensed. The current debacle in relation to flu vaccination does not provide confidence. Ministers have repeatedly assured us they have not only purchased adequate Covid vaccine but that it has been manufactured. I suggest the challenges are:

• Distribution. The Telegraph has reported the armed forces might be used. I am a practicing anaesthetist treating NHS patients. I am also a director of an independent provider that has treated over 6000 NHS patients since March 2020. The armed forces have been responsible for our PPE since March. We have had but one delivery, of 1000 reusable goggles, which had been identified as a faulty product the previous week. We have had to source and supply all our own PPE throughout. This distribution system does not work. hospitals have ordered drugs on a daily basis for many decades, many of them time and temperature sensitive. Delivery systems already exist, and Amazon would be more reliable as a back up.

• Location. The suggestion that a handful of Nightingale hospitals might vaccinate 20 to 54 million people is incredible, even if they will no longer provide the other services they were identified just weeks ago. In addition, we do not want many potentially infectious patients milling in one place. Surely we should go out into the community? Supermarkets are ideal as people pass through. Car parks can be used outdoors. Churches have two entrances allowing separation. The list is endless

• Personnel. The suggestion that we should recruit 20,000 people is of concern. We have over a million practicing doctors, nurses and pharmacists already in post and trained to vaccinate. Let us send them out to local vaccination centres

If we can rise to the challenge of distributing vaccine to hospitals and general practices we should leave the administration to the local doctors, nurses and shopkeepers. We must not repeat the centralisation fiasco of track and trace. My company employs 400 doctors and nurses and I plan to ask all of them to donate a day off to vaccinate in our high street. That alone gives a vaccination capacity of 96,000 in one day, but I can do nothing if the system cannot provide the vaccine nor if ministers demand we train up 20,000 unqualified individuals in a handful of distant Nightingale hospitals.

I would welcome your support.

Yours sincerely

Dr Aubrey Bristow

(November 2020)