TThe NHS will have to cancel some non-urgent surgeries and procedures to meet ambitious new Covid booster targets, Sajid Javid admitted.
Boris Johnson announced new plans last night to administer one million Covid vaccines a day, in an emergency program to avoid the risk of a New Year’s closure, much higher than the previous daily record.
Faced with a “surge” of omicron cases, the Prime Minister’s “Get Boosted Now” plan has advanced the goal of prodding all eligible adults in England until the end of the year, four weeks ahead of schedule.
Mr. Javid, the Health Secretary, told Sky News: “This goal is huge, the highest we have ever achieved is around 770,000 a day. To power this number of people, you will have to exceed it every day. There will be different types of units, mobile units, and we are asking GPs to do more, pharmacists to do more. “
The centers will be open “at least 12 hours a day” every day except Christmas Day, the minister added. But even with this, he admitted that medical staff would be redirected from another job to meet the year-end goal.
Javid told the Today show: “We are doing everything we can. It is not an easy decision to make. It means that when it comes to primary care for the next two weeks, our GPs will only focus on urgent needs and vaccinations, And it means non-urgent appointments and elective surgeries may need to be postponed until the New Year.
“For the next two to three weeks, this is the next national mission.”
Follow the latest updates below.
.