GPs working in the Highlands have questioned plans to move routine vaccinations away from general practice in light of concerns about health board delivery of the covid booster jab programme.

Dr Iain Kennedy, Medical Director of Highland Local Medical Committee, said the covid booster vaccine programme showed patients were more likely to respond to communications from their local GP.

The Inverness GP said: “The do not attend rates over four or five of the clinics that we delivered for the health board was 50%. That’s because these appointments were booked centrally through the government-led booking service.

“By comparison the clinic that we did last Saturday had a 2.5% do not attend rate. That is because our patients respond to the texts and letters that we send out asking them to book an appointment.

“Our approach is far more person-centred, where the patient can actually book a time that suits them, rather than being appointed a specific time by a third party.”

The traditional role of Scotland's family doctors in delivering vaccinations will come to an end in April 2022, after this year’s deadline was pushed back.

Under the 2018 GP contract, responsibility for a number of tasks previously led by family doctors will instead move to NHS boards.

Under the agreement, health boards can commission GPs to be vaccinators in remote and rural places where they are the best option for local people – but NHS boards have been told ‘GP practices are not the preferred delivery model for vaccinations’.

A ‘vaccination transformation programme’, overseen by the Scottish government, requires all NHS boards to set up alternative arrangements for vaccinating people of all ages.

These have included the creation of vaccination centres, many of which are operating from NHS board-owned health centres, as well as enhancing the role of maternity clinicians in supporting vaccinations for pregnant women, and broadening the role of school vaccination teams.

In much of the country, administration of booster shots has already moved to health boards, though some Highland practices are continuing to deliver covid-19 booster vaccines alongside flu jabs.

However there have been complaints of issues with the centrally-run booking system, including older patients facing long journeys to appointment venues.

Dr Robbie Coull, from Strachur practice in Argyll, said he learnt at the “last minute” that covid vaccines would be done by NHS Highland despite his practice being “ready to go”.

He said: “[The health board] hired a bunch of district nurses to do these vaccine shots, they turned up and they were asking for directions because they don’t know where they are. At a colleague’s practice one turned up at the home of a patient who was dead [because] their lists are out of date.

“We’ve got all these patients who are angry they haven’t got their booster shot yet, who are asking why we are not doing anything.

“We’re having low uptake on the influenza vaccine, because people are saying ‘I’d rather have both at the same time, I’d rather have both in the same appointment’.”

The 2018 contract attracted opposition from rural GPs, who felt it would skew funding towards urban areas.

Dr Iain Kennedy said: “The new GP contract remains deeply unpopular with the majority of my members who traditionally deliver a comprehensive suite of services to their patients, and wish to continue to do so.

“Furthermore, we have always had huge concerns about the ability of our health board to take over the new services and that has been borne out… we predict this programme will not be comprehensive and will fail to deliver the quality that is currently delivered by GP practices themselves.

“We think there will be many rural practices, for example, where for reasons of geography and the current workforce crisis for healthcare workers, [the health board] will neither be able to cope with the distances travelled nor the numbers of nursing staff that they will require to deliver the service.”

Read more: GP contract causing pharmacist "workforce drain"; ’No target’ for face to face GP appointments; Joint warning over GP contract progress

Sign up to our bulletin for key health & social care updates straight to your inbox.