Scots over the age of 50 who have yet to be invited for a Covid vaccine have been urged to be patient and “stick with it” as the NHS is working to make sure no one is forgotten.
The Scottish Government set today as their target for offering everyone in that age range their first dose of the Covid vaccination.
However, concerns have been raised that some people in this bracket have yet to be contacted by the NHS.
Scotland’s interim deputy chief medical officer Dave Caesar appeared on Good Morning Scotland and urged those who had not been offered a vaccination to “stick with it” and use the proper channels to highlight they had been missed.
‘We will get to you when we can’
He said: “We recognise it will be a little unnerving, there’s an apology there if you are feeling that way, and if you might have fallen through the cracks but the system is working through it, these are not static groups, people are joining them all the time.
“The system is pretty robust though and it will pick up these folk that might not have been captured by the first kind of effort in due course so stick with us, we will get to you when we can.
“It’s hard to put a number on it (how long to wait before contacting the NHS) when to contact the NHS, there is information on NHS Inform that I would encourage people to look at which can help you understand how this process works.
“What we don’t want to do is create waves of people contacting GPs and other people who are also incredibly busy trying to manage normal healthcare delivery.
“Just try and stick with it, the system will get to you, there is a helpline and we will get to you as soon as we can.”
Scotland’s vaccination target
Mr Caesar also confirmed that Scotland had almost hit their Covid vaccine target.
He added: “We have actually vaccinated over 96% of over 50-year-olds and that’s obviously the really important bit in all of this which is fantastic news and really gives us an excellent point to move through the younger ages groups from this point on.
“We are nudging 90% in the 50-54 age category, it’s about 87% as of yesterday so it will be a bit higher today so those are going at a great pace as well.”