Journal of Pharmacy Management - Jan 2022

Journal of Pharmacy Management • Volume 38 • Issue 1 • January 2022 ensuring that more patients could receive their first dose and then we were able to extract 6 doses from each vial. As winter turned to spring, the AZ or Oxford vaccine was approved on conditional licence by the MHRA and supplies of the 10 dose vials started arriving. From a logistics and clinic running perspective simply retrieving the vials fromthe fridgewithno reconstitution made things so much more straightforward. We were one of the first local vaccination centres to receive the AZ vaccine and I remember handing out bundles of kidney bowls with the syringes and batch no. AB001 to our vaccinators. Of course we started on the 10 doses per vial recommendation but soon found we could go to 11 or 12 per vial. Several weeks later we moved to the 8 dose (actually 9) vials which caused some confusion, different shape and size vials – different numbers of syringes to be racked up in the kidney bowls … Running in parallel to AZ clinics, we were still receiving Pfizer deliveries. All of sudden the patient preference (certainly for older patients) was to have the ‘Oxford’ vaccine and be patriotic. As we moved into spring and the warmer weather arrived with a flourish vaccine clinics became easier, there was less pressure from patients waiting in the cold and we could open up the building fully for ventilation. Gradually reports of blood clots and thrombotic episodes with the AZ vaccine started to filter through on the daily CCG reports and as time went by, the Oxford–AZ vaccine was no longer the vaccine of choice. The age limit for the AZ vaccine was dropped to 40 + then only 18 years and older, then eventually the supply was stopped and we had to return all the unused vials. Meanwhile back at the practice, pressures of the day job were starting tomount, having spent considerable time at the vaccine clinic andmany housebound visits (initially with AZ then to Pfizer). The demand for medication reviews, medicines management and in particular Structured Medication Reviews was piling up. Fortunately this practice demand coincided with a reduction of vaccine clinics over the summer: I was able to spendmost of July and August happily fulfilled with domestic duties. After the hustle and bustle of 6 day weeks with busy vaccination clinics being full time back in the practice was a much needed break. As Autumn 2021 started to loom, NHS and patient demand for 2nd vaccinations to generate a COVID passport (via the NHS App) increased dramatically. 44