Routine vaccine delivery is to be restored to Highland GPs, following intervention by the Health Secretary.

A local MSP says the change would have been made much sooner – and a baby’s life possibly saved – if the health board and government officials hadn’t blocked it.

Public Health Minister Jenni Minto has confirmed that the Health Secretary has written to the health board ordering the change amidst concerns over falling vaccine uptake, increasing costs, and poorer outcomes since the NHS Highland board led service was introduced in 2023.

NHS Highland has acknowledged the difficulties experienced since the health board took over vaccine delivery, and said it will now work towards returning these to GP practices in the most appropriate cases.

Local MSP Fergus Ewing, who raised the issue in parliament last week, told healthandcare.scot the decision is a relief after a three year long campaign, but that questions remain over the lack of urgency placed on the issue by government officials and health board leaders since it was first raised:

“In 2022 I argued that the GPs should keep the service. Though backed up by cogent and frankly unassailable arguments from local GPs, these representations were ignored by NHS Highland and the Scottish government whose senior civil servants, according to sources, effectively blocked the local board from doing this.

“That mindset of secrecy is surely at the heart of what is wrong about the way the NHS Highland is run right now.

“This is hard to say, but it must be said, and I hope now that there will on the part of both NHS Highland and Scottish government senior officials be a duty of candour.    

“Thus far there has been an extreme reluctance even now to share all the facts with the public whom they are there to serve.”

The responsibility for routine vaccinations, like flu and childhood immunisations, were removed from GPs as part of the 2018 General Medical Services (GP) contract.

Since 2023, all vaccinations in the Highlands have been delivered by the health board in centralised centres.

Rural GPs were critical of the plans from the beginning, voting en masse to reject the contract due to concerns that health board delivery could threaten the historically high rates of vaccination in areas like the Highlands.

Figures from Public Health Scotland show six-year-olds living in areas served by NHS Highland are now the least likely in Scotland to be fully vaccinated.

Mr Ewing told healthandcare.scot that the centralised delivery system has meant GPs can’t see which of their patients have been immunised – a fact he believes contributed to the death of a baby in the region:

“So, this remains an unanswered question: one infant in the Highlands lost her life because, it is widely believed, of the lack of timeous access to whooping cough virus.

“The family involved wish, and are entitled to, privacy and that must be respected.

“It is my belief that would not have occurred had the GPs continued to provide the local service and it shows that provision of local service is not just better and more convenient for patients, but also much, much safer.”

“Had NHS Highland and Scottish government acted earlier on the many warnings issued by GPs then that life would not have been lost.”

The Inverness and Nairn MSP will now meet with the Health Secretary and Highland GPs to work on a plan to return vaccinations services back to Highland GPs “as quickly as possible”.

NHS Highland and its local health and social care partnership has been working with GPs throughout 2024 to develop options for the return of GP-run vaccination services in areas believed to be most appropriate.

A spokesperson for the board said:

“We submitted a proposal for this at a national level and we have now heard that our proposal has been accepted by the Scottish government.

“This is the first step in a significant redesign process.

“We will work very closely with general practice, Public Health Scotland, our own existing vaccination team and the Scottish government, and take on board input from communities, to develop and implement changes whilst ensuring the public are kept up to speed on what this will mean for them.”

 

Read more: National vaccine system a “challenge” for rural areas; GPs question transfer of vaccinations to health boards; GP contract changes too slow to fix ‘unfolding crisis’; GP contract causing pharmacist "workforce drain";

 

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