A former NHS Highland board member called for the Scottish Government to ‘actually listen’ to voices warning of the damaging impact on vaccine uptake the current delivery scheme is having in the Highlands and rural areas.
Melanie Newdick during the Covid Inquiry.
Melanie Newdick travelled from her Easter Ross home to London yesterday to give evidence in front of the ongoing UK Covid Inquiry, representing the Scottish Covid Berieved group.
Ms Newdick, whose mother died of Covid in 2021, raised concerns about the impacts of the current delivery system for vaccines in Scotland – which has been taken away from local GP practices and taken over by health boards – in the case of a new pandemic, particularly for the delivery of vaccines in the Highlands and other rural areas.
She explained: “In Scotland we have to through a completely different process than in England, as we have to go to clinics arranged by the health board.
The new scheme is Scotland has taken vaccine delivery away from GPs – a move criticised by many for its impact on rural communities.
“One of our concerns now is: if we had another pandemic tomorrow, would our system be able to deliver vaccines at the pace that we did previously? At the minute, the data seems to say that it can’t.
“For example, we are having a huge flu outbreak at the moment, but the vaccine uptake in the Highlands is now half the rate it was compared to when the GPs were administering it.
“This has huge implications on many levels – but also on what would happen should we experience another pandemic.”
When asked by DM whether the GP system was important to reach rural communities, Ms Newdick replied: “It’s really important for everybody that every vaccine system should be designed to make getting a vaccine as easy as possible, whereas now we are adding additional barriers for people.
“It makes it even more difficult for anybody in an ethnic group or from a deprived area, anybody that has concerns about vaccines – this is now an additional step, a barrier that we have in our system that we don’t have in England.”
Inquiry chair, Baroness Heather Hallett, asked Ms Newdick to explain how the delivery in system in Scotland worked, and if there was availability of clinics during weekends or evenings to meet the needs of people working during the day.
She replied: “We have to ring the health board or go online to find a clinic. Which could be 20 miles from home or tomorrow the first available could be 220 miles away from my home. We can’t go to the GP for any vaccination.”
“Checking for availability in January, I found clinics available only during weekdays, at around 10am-12pm or 1pm to 3pm.”
As part of her witness statement, she also raised concerns over how reaching clinics was an extra barrier for elderly and vulnerable people,.
She said: “Now we are requiring people who are vulnerable to make their way to a vaccination point – some having to face lengthy journeys, especially for people living in rural areas.
“What we are asking is whether this new system making it easier or more difficult for people to get a vaccine?”
She also said that the current delivery system is also a further barrier for those who are hesitant in front of vaccines, saying that the spread of misinformation on social media and other channels risk impacting uptake rates even more now that GP support on this matter has been taken away.
Earlier this week The Inverness Courier reported the concerns of Beauly GP Dr Ross Jaffrey, whose report highlighted a worrying drop in vaccination uptake in the Highlands under the news scheme – with an increase in cases of whooping cough and the first death of a child under one year-old in 2024.
Following her appearance at the Inquiry, Ms Newdick, said: “I was a board member at the time the Government talked about this program.
“One of my colleagues, Michael Foxley – a GP – felt so strongly that,that he resigned in protest, saying that ‘children would die’.
“I was just messaging him yesterday saying how unfortunate it was that he was proved right.
“We told the Government at the time this system would not work for the Highlands, but we were told we had to change to the health board delivering vaccines rather than GPs.
“I am hoping that this, along with Fergus Ewing raising this in Holyrood, will make the Scottish Government actually listen. That’s why I wanted to come down in person rather than doing video evidence.
“ We need to look at the whole scheme across Scotland – but, for rural areas, this is working.
“It’s unsafe – so, we need to do something about that now.
“I hope that the inquiry will now be asking questions of the Scottish Government – because this inquiry is all about learning lessons from this pandemic, and not just about the pandemic, but about vaccines in general and protecting people, and looking at the rates, they are showing – figures are pretty horrendous having half of vaccine uptake we had from five years ago. “
A NHS Highland spokesperson said: “We’ve been running the winter vaccination programme since October. The programme is now coming to an end so we are focussing on drop-in clinics.
“Details of these are available on our website.”