14/07/2025
Message from NHS Sussex regarding Housebound Spring Booster Covid Vaccinations
• Sign up to the Covid-19 vaccination programme is optional and as a practice Westcourt decided, for a number of reasons, not to sign-up to deliver Covid-19 vaccinations. In these cases, an alternative provider was sought by NHS England and NHS Sussex to deliver these vaccinations on their behalf. Both the practice, NHS England and NHS Sussex know the importance of ensuring our eligible patients are able to receive a vaccination in a timely way.
• For the Spring 2025 campaign the local provider who was assigned to deliver vaccinations to our eligible housebound patients was provided with a list of patients in order to make contact to arrange an appointment and provide vaccination where consent was given. The provider attempted to contact all patients on multiple occasions with many calls not being answered, some declining vaccination and some remaining unreachable after multiple attempts.
• The Spring campaign ended on 17th June 2025 and unfortunately there is no longer a legal mechanism available to vaccinate those patients that did not receive a vaccination. The next opportunity for patients to receive a vaccination will be this Autumn/Winter and is due to start on 1st October 2025. Lessons have been learnt from the Spring campaign and NHS Sussex will be working with the local allocated provider to ensure that our eligible housebound patients have access to a vaccination and are provided with contact details as soon as possible.
• The eligible cohorts for a COVID vaccination in Autumn/Winter are those aged over 75, those resident in older adult care homes and those persons aged 6 months and over who are immunosuppressed, as defined in tables 3 and 4 of the COVID-19 chapter of the Green Book. Those eligible housebound patients will not need to contact the practice to book a vaccination, nor need to contact 119 or NHS Sussex – they will be contacted directly to arrange a suitable time.
Thank you.
