FAMILY doctors in Tayside will be vaccinating all over 65s against Covid in their own practices, Scotland's GP leader has said.
Dr Andrew Buist, a GP in Blairgowrie, Perthshire and chair of the BMA's Scottish GP Committee, said the rollout in the region will be modelled on the winter flu programme.
He said: "In Tayside, they want us to do all the same groups that we would normally do with the flu campaign - so anybody over 65 and anybody in an at-risk group who is under 65.
"But in a big urban health board like Glasgow, they might do something different."
READ MORE: Why you might not be seeing your GP for your Covid jag
It comes after the Herald on Sunday reported on concerns from some GPs that they are in the dark about what their role will be following the rollout to over-80s.
Unlike England's GP-led scheme, in Scotland health boards are responsible for delivering the vaccinations and it is likely that many under-80s will be asked to attend for vaccination at other community sites, such as town halls and sports centres.
Dr Buist said this was important to free up GPs to also focus on non-Covid health problems.
He said: "We have to be available to see people who are unwell. There's been stories about people not coming forward with breathlessness, weight loss, breast lumps, and all that, so we have to maintain access to those sorts of things rather than shutting up shop just to do vaccinations."
He said it was up to local GP leaders to negotiate with their own health boards what role GPs should play.
"Say Glasgow health board is doing a clinic on a Saturday at St Mirren football club and the GP wants to sign up to be part of that, that's absolutely fine.
"But practices taking it on or clubbing together to do it is not the best use of GP time."
READ MORE: Ban on vaccinations in outbreak-hit care homes dropped
However, Dr Buist said he agreed there was a role for GPs to deliver the vaccine directly to patients in the shielding category or who are vulnerable due to deprivation.
Dr Buist said: "It might be absolutely appropriate for health boards to agree with these practices, if they are willing to take it on, that they vaccinate people who under the age of 65 who, because of health inequalities, would find it difficult to access a mass vaccination centre."
He rejected the suggestion that Scotland was trailing England because it had started vaccinating the over-80s later.
As of Saturday, Scotland was administering 307 vaccinations per 100,000 compared to 497 in England, 425 in Wales, and 640 in Northern Ireland.
He said: "I would question why England was doing the over-80s before they'd finished vaccinating elderly people in care homes. Scotland was doing it the right way round.
"It is going to be very interesting, at the end of this programme, comparing Scotland and England - we're doing it different ways. Personally, I think the Scotland proposal is much better.
"I'm a bit concerned that the size of the programme is so big that's it's beyond the units of GP practices to do. It will be interesting to see whether England can pull it off."
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