Sheffield surgery explains 40-minute wait for patients who wanted to get Covid booster shots

A Sheffield surgery has explained why some patients had to stand in a queue for more than 40 minutes last week while they waited for their Covid booster jabs.
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Manor Park Medical Centre was criticised for making the patients, most over 80 years old, stand in a long queue to get their boosters last week.

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A woman, who accompanied her 80-year-old father to get his vaccination said despite being given an appointment, he still needed to wait for about 40 minutes to get to the front of the queue.

Some patients had to wait for 40 minutes to get their booster shots last week.Some patients had to wait for 40 minutes to get their booster shots last week.
Some patients had to wait for 40 minutes to get their booster shots last week.
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She also claimed that the patients were not given seats and that appointments should have been staggered to avoid long waits.

In response, Manor Park Medical Centre said that the delays were caused by some patients arriving much earlier than their scheduled appointments.

A spokesperson said: “We offered staggered appointments to all the people who booked for that clinic and the opening time was given as 1pm.

“However, from 12:15pm we had a queue of patients waiting. One patient, whose appointment was at 1.45pm, informed the nurse he saw that he actually started queuing from 12.30pm.

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“We would never turn a patient away who has arrived early and queued, and this had an impact on the waiting time of all patients.

“We did have stewards in the carpark who were offering wheelchairs to patients who asked for further assistance or were identified by our stewards as people who looked like they needed it.

“These patients were then brought in via the exit, so that they could be permanently seated until a clinician became available, thus freeing up the wheelchair for other potential users.

“We acknowledge that there was, for some patients, a long delay, however we did not anticipate the large volume of patients who showed up at least 45 minutes before their appointment time.”

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Last week Sheffield kicked off its campaign to provide booster shots to people who received Covid-19 vaccinations during phase one of the roll-out.

People over the age of 50, those living in care homes and those working in front-line health and social care positions are all eligible for the booster shots.

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