All England care home residents and staff will get Covid jab within next 10 days ‘at the latest’

All care home residents in England will be vaccinated against Covid-19 within the next 10 days, health officials have said.

NHS England has told GPs that it “expects” the majority of both residents and staff to be immunised by the end of this week, or by 24 January “at the latest”.

A letter sent to the groups of GP surgeries who signed up to deliver the vaccination programme suggests that the rollout can be done from 8am to 8pm seven days a week to reach the target.

25 jabs could save a life

The vaccination push comes as MPs heard that immunising just 25 care home residents against Covid-19 could save a life.

The figures demonstrate some of the reasoning behind the priority list set out by experts advising the government, with care home residents topping the list of nine categories of those most at risk.

The next category down includes the over 80s and all frontline health and care workers.

Vaccinating just 250 people over the age of 80 will save one life, the Science and Technology Committee was told.

However, “many thousands” of train operators would need to be vaccinated to save a life, MPs heard.

Professor Wei Shen Lim, chairman of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), explained: “In terms of protecting people within a constrained vaccine supply, the estimates are that we have to vaccinate only about 250 people aged over 80 to save one life.

“For care home residents, we only need to vaccinate somewhere between 25 to 45 care home residents to save one life.

“If you were trying to vaccinate, for example, train operators, then you would have to vaccinate many thousand train operators to save a life.

“It doesn’t mean that that’s not important, but it’s weighing up the values there. That’s a policy decision as to what value one wants to weigh up.”

Key worker priority

The government aims to have the top four priority groups offered their first jab by mid-February.

These groups include care home residents and their carers, frontline health and social care staff and all those over the age of 70.