Medical practice near Peterborough sorry for inconvenience caused as Police disperse patients seeking Covid vaccine

The incident took place on Saturday (January 23) at the Jenner Health Centre in Whittlesey.

The centre is one of the main vaccination centres being used by Octagon Medical Practice, who operate eight surgeries in and around Peterborough.

On Saturday morning, a post appeared on the practice’s Facebook page encouraging patients in the top priority groups for the Covid-19 vaccine that had not yet been contacted to turn up and receive a jab.

This was in an effort to use up vaccines from batch at the centre before they could no longer be used. The Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine has to be stored in deep-freeze and only has a limited period in which it can be used once taken out and delivered to surgeries.

At just before 1pm, however, a post appeared on the Policing Peterborough Facebook page telling people that they should not turn up at the centre without an appointment and that anyone who did so would be preventing others with appointments from getting theirs. Police have since confirmed that they were called to reports of heavy traffic outside the centre.

A statement from Cambridgeshire Police said: “We were called at just after 11.30am on Saturday (23 January) to reports of heavy traffic near the Octagon Medical Practice in St Marys Street, Whittlesey. The traffic followed a social media post by the practice which encouraged people to attend for a coronavirus vaccine because a number of vaccines were required to be used that day.

“As a result, a number of people arrived at the health centre which caused highway disruption and delayed those with pre-arranged vaccine appointments from arriving on time.

“When officers arrived, the practice no longer had concerns about vaccines going unused. As such, the issue was explained to those who did not have an appointment and about ten vehicles were subsequently asked to leave the area. Marshalls from the health centre continued to pass the message on for the rest of the day to prevent any further highway issues.”

Octagon has now apologised for the disruption that their post caused but have stressed that no vaccine was wasted and that people given a jab were only those eligible under Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidelines.

A spokesperson for Octagon Medical Practice said: “In an effort to ensure vaccines were not wasted we invited those in eligible groups to come to the practice to be vaccinated, but we are sorry for the inconvenience it caused locally.

“It is important to wait to be invited for your vaccine and we would urge those with an appointment to do everything they can to attend, and we look forward to vaccinating more local people as even more sites go live in the area over the coming weeks.”

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