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Diabetic "nurse" not qualified to give flu jab

B

Basiunka

Newbie
Messages
1
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
I have huge difficulty booking an appointment with the DN at our medical centre because I want to have my flu jab at the same time. It's a nightmare yet to g there and there's never enough parking so it stresses me, hence wanting to get it all done in one visit. So why is it that a so called nurse is incapable of giving a flu jab? It annoys the he'll out of me.
 
Have you tried your pharmacist that's who did mine when I went in for my repeat prescription.
 
Mind you in the past when on a diabetic review by the nurse at my surgery she said have you had your flu jab I said not yet so she administered one then and there though did have to get the vaccine from the doctor.

So the nurse should be quite able to do it it may just be a case of administrative funk.
 
Basiunka said:
So why is it that a so called nurse is incapable of giving a flu jab? It annoys the he'll out of me.
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Can't explain unless it's just an excuse. As JohnEGreen says, try a local pharmacist. I've been doing that for several years because my surgery will only do flu jabs on a certain Saturday and then you have a 4 minute appointment. With my local Boots, I can agree a date and time and then take as long as I like, within reason. It's still free.
 
 
I think this sort of thing is about nhs payments to clinics. I think get a payment per appt. So if you to see the clinic about two separate issues, i advise booking 2 appts.
Of coyrse tge problem.with this system is 2 appts length are blocked out for what might managed in 1 appt prior to current payment system. So patients have to longer for an appt because all this 1 treatment or condition discussion per appt slot business. Its frustrating and inefficient, although the accountants are happy as they understand what is being done and how it costs, which is important. But the system needs revision. Drs nurses and patients are being fitted to the appt-charging process, rather than the charging process conforming to our needs.
 
The practice may have a policy of doing flu jabs at specific times, in a clinic. It is a lot quicker and easier to run an efficient production line, that way. With 1000s of patients all needing the jab it makes far more sense to do them like that rather than give each a separate 10 min appt.
 

It may still be free to you, however, your surgery will have pre-ordered, and paid for "your" vaccine. When the jab is then done at whichever pharmacy you choose, the charge does not go to you, but is billed back to your local surgery who have to settle that bill. On that basis, they will have paid for a vaccine, not delivered, plus a further fee for both the vaccine, but for the pharmacy to inject it.

I'm not saying this is right, wrong or indifferent, but where surgeries are balancing, and often struggling with budgets, you can understand why they could be irritated by it.

At my surgery at the recent flu clinic, on a Saturday morning 08:30 - 12:00, over 1000 vaccines were delivered in 2 minute slots. It was a very slick process, which most patients seemed to find very satisfactory, and all staff were in casual clothes, with sunny dispositions, because they knew they were shifting a whole load of work.

As an aside, the bake stall and tombola raised very significant sums split between MacMillan Cancer Support and the local Air Ambulance, who are their currently chosen charities.
 
OTOH, rightly or wrongly, our surgeries are businesses first and foremost...

If they choose to speculatively buy medication on the expectation that they have a captive market that's their lookout. If they want to capture as much of that income, they need to offer the flu service where and when works for their 'customers'. During working hours, 90 minutes from your place of work on a fixed date/time is bound to limit the numbers taking up their offer. Which is where the pharmacies trump the GP surgery.

Shiba.
 

I don't believe my surgery only does block clinics. They do allow appointments at other times, but I'm sure you can see the advantages from a lot of viewpoints to offering a large clinic (on which every person had an allotted time), on a Saturday morning, which might be significantly more convenient for many that 2pm on a Tuesday, or whatever.

I'm not suggesting for a nano-second that the block clinics are the perfect solution, but it's all helpful in their attempts to minimally disrupt the services they offer to those not requiring flu jabs, but do need to be seen by a doctor, in BAU terms.
 

I have seen my GP today and when I told her that I had my flu jab at the pharmacy she didn't bat an eyelid. Are you saying that they will have ordered vaccine for me even though I never had an appointment. I will check with them and of course reimburse them. My appointment today was to discuss me taking Victoza which cost about a £100 a month and I told her that the side effects outweighed the benefits, especially the benefit they advised me of. So, along with the cost, could I stop. As she was aware that I'm very conscious of wastage in the NHS, we had discussed that very topic, I'm surprised she said nothing.
 
DCUKMod said:
however, your surgery will have pre-ordered, and paid for "your" vaccine.
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Just checked, my surgery get a stock of vaccine and then it's first come first serve till it runs out. If you don't book an appointment, that's not a problem.
 
I believe it's the same at my surgery at least they never seem to be bothered whether I get it from them or the pharmacy as long as I have it.
 
I am having various tests at the moment in case I've developed yet another medical condition to add to the growing list.
All the nurses at my surgery now specialise, so for an ECG, blood tests and a special set of blood pressure tests I've had to book 3 separate appointments, on 3 different days.
Assuming I have something simple to diagnose, that is 5 visits as these are sandwiched between the two appointments with the GP.
My 6 monthly diabetic reviews require 3 appointments instead of 2 since they changed the system in spring this year. One for bloods, one for the foot check and getting weighed, and then one to see the surgery DN.
 

To be honest, I imagine the vaccine will be used up for normies (in this instance not usually qualifying for a jab), and they'll likely have a formula to allow for absentees, but I'm just relaying a conversation between one of the partners and me.
 
In France I get my flu jab from the pharmacy, the chemist can give you the jab there straight away or you can get the nurse to come to your house to do it,although I am naughty and get my wife to do it as it is in the top of the arm otherwise I would do it myself does that make me really naughty, I have to say I did let the nurse do the first few each year
 
DCUKMod said:
they'll likely have a formula to allow for absentees,
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Not entirely sure what a "normie" is. I hope is nothing to do with being "normal". Even without diabetes, as I'll be over 65 on 31st March 2020, I would be eligible . . . . . and normal. LOL

I never had an appointment at the surgery so I'm not an absentee! Also, since I have now checked with my surgery and they do not order a number of vaccines based on who has made an appointment, or even based on how many patients they consider to be eligible, they might do elsewhere, just not at my surgery. At my surgery they order vaccines and then first come first serve till it's gone.

The information I have is that if kept refrigerated the vaccine can last for several years although it will have changed by next year.
 
Basiunka said:
So why is it that a so called nurse is incapable of giving a flu jab?
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All of the treatment room nurses at the GP surgery I go to are capable of giving injections, even some of the student doctors that spend time there can.

The fluvax is available from April here at the GP's, I get mine around the end of that month which is a freebie. It costs $20.00 at a pharmacy to get one.
 
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