Elderly patients were left queuing outside in hats and scarves during freezing cold temperatures to receive their Covid-19 vaccination at a south London GP surgery.
Hundreds were seen queuing along the pavement for their jab at The Jenner Practice in Forest Hill, south London, on Friday which began vaccinations for those over 80.
Maria Demetrious filmed the queue winding around several corners leading to the clinic after dropping off her father, 85, and mother, 79, for his vaccine at the surgery.
Her brother Paul Demetrious, who posted the video on Twitter, said: 'My parents have been isolating since February 20. On arrival for dad's Covid-19 vaccine time slot met this circus! They left without it!'
The 41-second clip, which has garnered 471,900 views, shows hundreds of elderly patients waiting with coats and face masks on for their appointment.
Speaking to LBC, Mr Demetrious said: 'We shared this not as a witch hunt - although our mother was extremely upset - but for answers so that lessons can be learned to improve
The footage shows some had even brought chairs to rest their feet while they waited and many appeared to be accompanied by carers or relatives for their appointment.
Ms Demetrious described how her parents left before her father received his vaccine and his GP is in the process of rearranging the appointment.
'Their own GP has been in contact to make sure they are okay, and is arranging something else,' Ms Demetrious said.
'I must say he has been a rock throughout many years of knowing my parents, and this is no reflection on him or that practice.
'I'm hopeful now they will be able to get the vaccine soon in a safe environment and not encounter the same as yesterday.'
Commenting on the video, Lewisham CCG said: 'We're sorry your parents faced this situation.
'This was the first vaccination day for the service, lessons have been learned.
'Vaccinators doubled to reduce waiting time; patients asked to arrive five minutes before appointment.
'These will ease queues and hopefully reassure your parents.'
The Care Quality Commission commented on the video: 'Thanks for bringing this to our attention. The matter has been raised to the appropriate Inspector for review.'
Meanwhile Andrew Richards had an appointment for his mother at The Jenner Practice on Friday and was told it would be a three-hour wait in the cold for the jab.
He told London News Online: 'There must have been between 300 and 400 people in the queue.
'Some of them looked really fragile and frail, standing around with blankets around them.'
'We had to go straight back home because my mum cannot stand for more than a few minutes.'
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This shocks, but really doesn't surprise me! Seems to be expected in these farcically organised covid times. Yes, let's get all the over 80's to have their jabs and not give a thought to them having to stand in queues for ages alongside hundreds of other people who could give them the virus! Grrrr!
We had a similar situation on the first day at the clinic in the Beacon shopping centre in Eastbourne. At least we were inside and went to linger over tea until the time we were advised to come back at 3.20. Our appointment had been for 1.55 but we were told they were running an at least an hour and a half late as the vaccine had been late in turning up evidently due to it not being the right temperature.The Sunday was evidently OK but big queue there again on the Monday.
This is clearly down to bad organisation locally. Went for my first vaccination today and the organisation was excellent. This was a mass vaccination event in a large secondary school for over eighties.Nobody waited longer than 5 minutes .I live in oxford.
I think that over the next few weeks we will have wall-to-wall coverage on TV of vaccination centres, interviews with nurses and doctors, people who have just been vaccinated, crews out with volunteers taking the vaccines to distant or snowed up villages.
It was unfortunate that those elderly people were kept waiting out in the cold. Maybe the intention was that they would all be in and out quickly but it didn't work out like that. A bit like our one where the vaccines turned up two hours late.
I'm just hoping that it will all be a big success.
Most worrying is the fact that they will soon not be able to treat everyone. However, it won't last forever like this. And most of the doctors and nurses who've got the virus will get better soon.
My wife's mother (90) and our ex-home help (86) have both been done and had their 2nd jab at Petersfield. It was very well organised with little delay. Just to note, both had worse side effects the 2nd time with very sore arms and headaches, but both fine now.
I also had a sore arm after my second injection but not after the first. If my experience is anything to go by the amount of paperwork that has to be filled in may be one of the reasons for long waits, if this has not been factored into the system. Fortunately the Royal Free where I had the injections seemed to have allowed for this and the process was quite smooth, with no queuing for booked appointments.
Hundreds of people queuing is not good, especially the age of the people being vaccinated and the freezing cold weather.
The centre local to me is very well organised. My neighbours went for an 8.15 appointment and the rotary club were showing everyone to parking places. There was quite a queue, but when my neighbours went to join it someone called out for the 8.15 appointments. The queue consisted of people who had turned up way too early, despite being told not to turn up more than 5 minutes before their appointment.
So the queuing in the cold was self inflicted. Why is it that a lot of older people cannot resist ignoring what they have been told and turn up very early!
I am in group 4 so a little while before I get mine.
This is an emergency and us over 80s are old enough to remember e mergencys during the last war. Of course it is inconvenient cold and uncomfortable to stand in all weather's out side but we are lucky to live in the UK and have the opportunity to have the vaccine this quickly so get on with if wrap up and stop complaining!! Just saying!!
I remember going for smallpox vaccination in Edinburgh soon after the start of the war, No appointments then just turn up as no easy means of communication in those days. There was was a queue from the school in Brunswick Road to near the foot of Leith Walk.
You seem to forget that some elderly people are simply too frail to stand for several hours at all let alone in the cold. There is no need for such nonsenese. It could be better organised. The vacination might then proceed at a slower pace but this would not be more dangerous than hanging around in the freezing cold in close proximity to a lot of other people.
They all had timed appointments but there was a delay as we had and some turned up early. It is difficult not to if you rely on public transport or Taxi's. With us they had six doing the injections and had six patients called in at ten minute intervals.At least with the Oxford one they have decided that you don't need to stay for fifteen minutes after it
I was horrified when I first saw that video, I couldn’t have stood for 3 hours in a queue. It really is dependent upon where you live!
Thankfully, our area seems extremely well organized, mainly because all the GPs in the area work together as if they were 1 & set up excellent administration.
So do you believe it is acceptable to leave elderly folks out in cold weather as the story goes ? does other functioning ok make this a non issue ? just asking
NO! And I said how horrified I was and that there was no way I could of stood in a queue for that long or withstood the cold. I am nowhere near functioning because of autoimmune disease and nowhere near 80.
My comment was that there are also other places that do things differently but they don’t appear on the news. My husband, 87, received his 1st jab Dec18 and second last Tues. It was immaculate organisation with drop off points (no parking available), an army of helpers to whisk patients into warm room. Pick up point after the obligatory 15min observation.
It all seems down to it works very well in some places so I think it would be good to show a balance of the 2 extremes.
Some centres like yours complied with the second jab within three weeks others like ours are going with the later government twelve week one . We had our first ones on December 19th.
I think he just scraped in because my friend who was due on the following Sun had her’s delayed until the 12 week mark. I just rang my surgery for appointment for regular blood draw & they are now saying there are delays in deliveries. Let’s hope the army can speed things, they’re the logistics experts.
Like many of you I'm angry and disappointed with that queue and the organisation that gives no regard to the age of the people that they're dealing with. I'm also concerned as both my wife and myself are elderly and in the vulnerable group due to health concerns. On the bright side, despite the queue, vaccination has started. Our surgery hasn't started yet and still has no idea when they will! If the NHS reaches its target of 13m by the middle of February, The chances of my wife and I being in that 13m are remote.
Many of the new locations are quite unsuitable for many people. How easy are ones like Epsom Racecourse to get to for us oldies. The would need to lay on busses as they they do for the Derby.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl...
I seriously wonder how many will have underlying health problems due to this ? or added strain upon existing health problems ? anyone with a brain knows this is out n out dangerous to the elderly .. keep us informed if they issue a statement !
Oh no surprise really. My friends daughter is a nurse and had her vaccine booked through work for yesterday - her day off so she didn't miss work. When she got there apparently a lot of people were turned away - including her because it seems in that area - Gloucestershire GPs are sending people from their surgeries for the vaccine with no pre booked appointments, so they just wait and have the vaccine and by mid afternoon yesterday they had run out of the vaccine. Here in Wales the opposite seems to be happening and people are not turning up for their pre-booked vaccine and the vaccine is thrown away - I presume after a certain amount of time it cannot be used which is usually the case so no one turning up from GP surgeries there. Why can't we organise anything well these days?
Perhaps to a slightly lesser degree smallpox around the beginning of the war and later Polio. Although two friends of mine at school caught I was never vaccinated then. It was only in the 1980's when I asked a locum doctor about vaccinations when going on holiday to the Far East that he asked if I had ever had the polio one.
Yes but we really should be having local authority and emergency service exercises regularly so that they can react in these circumstances - and we did I think in 2016 which proved that we would have difficulty coping with a pandemic in particular the proivision of enough PPE clothing and equipment and - guess what nothing was done which is why we had a shortage of PPE at the beginning of this pandemic.
Yes. And if I recall there was an opportunity for emergency measures to be updated several years ago, which didn't happen. And boy has it shown since the kick off of this unprecedented crisis.
It is, of course, a question of money and staffing and also priorities. What has to be remembered is that without health there is nothing else really so health should always come first but it is hard as health actually covers a lot of things such as providing leisure centres and libraries and of course housing and environment. It must be so hard to balance the books. Having said that we still seem unable to organise like we used to. It seems it was the computerised booking system that was partly to blame for my friend's daughter though I do not understand how GPs were sending people to the centre to sit and wait for the jab without a pre-booked appointment - there is obviously something more. It's not like we didn't know this was coming it's been a year now since the pandemic started and we knew a vaccine would be imminent because, thank goodness we put everything we could into the research so surely someone somewhere must have been thinking about how we organise a nationwide roll-out at least as far back as 6 months ago? it seems weird that some areas like Eastbourne seem to be doing so well too? If one area can do it so easily why not others? The organisation should be similar.
I shall have to ask her I know my cousin in Middlesbrough area had his first jab early on and his second jab was cancelled and he has to wait up to 12 weeks now.
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