Department of Health – Primary Health Care COVID-19 Response Teleconference 7 July 2021 – Meeting notes from Dr Maria Boulton

The Primary Care Implementation Group (PCIG) is an online meeting that includes most primary healthcare peak bodies. It is convened weekly by the Department of Health as part of the COVID-19 response.
Dr Maria Boulton attends on behalf of the AGPA.

Comments from Taskforce

GP clinics have joined the Pfizer rollout with 500 Clinics starting this week. 36% of clinics staring this week are in rural areas. 1300 GP clinics are expected to join by the end of July.

The COVID taskforce is confident about the Pfizer supply to GP clinics, that it is sustainable.

300 rural and remote pharmacies will be joining the vaccine rollout by the end of July. Pharmacies will have access to AZ and perhaps Moderna pending TGA approval.

The concentration of the vaccination program later in the year will require additional workforce.  Request from the taskforce to make suggestions regarding surge workforce to help with the vaccination program.  Suggestions from the meeting included: retired doctors, retired nurses, medical students, science/therapy uni students, surf lifesavers, flight attendants.

Comments from Dr Maria Boulton:

Some clinics have already held Pfizer vaccination clinics successfully.
GP clinics seeing an increase in demand for Pfizer vaccine. Our patients are grateful to have access to Pfizer from their GP.
There is further capacity as GP is only getting small volumes.

Issues Raised by Other Attendees:

Difficult for students in Qld to access the COVID vaccines as requested by CHO. This may affect their placements.

Aged care workers having difficulty accessing COVID vaccines.

Request media move away from victim blaming.

It is important that the great work by GPs and their staff are doing through the pandemic is acknowledged. Prof Michael Kidd did do that at a recent press conference.

Some resistance to checking in with QR codes. There is a need for greater communications on this. Response: people need to follow State and Territory directives.

An incident was reported where a patient received AZ instead of Pfizer even though that is what the patient was expecting. Both vaccines were available at the clinic, and patient was under 60.
Care needs to be taken that patients receive the right vaccine. Clinic processes need to be considered.
It was suggested that DoH consider changing the consent forms from a single generic form to vaccine specific vaccine consent forms.