Sajid Javid today admitted GPs' workload will be shifted to focus on the booster campaign in a dramatic U-turn — as fears grow that face-to-face appointments with doctors will once again take the hit.
The Health Secretary said getting third doses into people's arms to protect against the Omicron variant had become the 'new national mission', after months of strong-arming GPs into seeing more non-Covid patients in-person.
No10 last night set the target of offering more than 50million booster jabs to every adult by the end of January, which will involve massively ramping up the current drive which is barely reaching 2.5m per week.
GPs will once again be a key anchor of the vaccination programme and will be incentivised with doctors getting £15 for every jab delivered with a £5 bonus per shot delivered on Sundays and a £30 premium for jabs delivered to vulnerable people in their homes.
Asked if he would lighten the load for doctors who have complained about excess work, Mr Javid told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'Yes - this is our new national mission in terms of the public health of this country there is nothing more important.
'We are working at pace with GP representatives in the last two days, in how we can free up some of their time. I won't set that out now myself, it will be set out by NHS directly.'
There are fears on what impact re-prioritisation will have on face-to-face appointments with GPs which only last month crept up to 64 per cent last month, but are massively below pre-pandemic levels.
There are also concerns about the wider impact the shift could have on non-Covid care, with record A&E wait times, and heart attack and stroke patients facing average waits for an ambulance of nearly an hour with Mr Javid himself warning last month that emergency care was being put under significant strain because patients were struggling to see GPs in person.
Health secretary Sajid Javid has said the new 'national mission' for the health system was delivering vaccines, adding that there was 'noting more important'
The above graph shows how the NHS waiting list could grow up to 2025. The National Audit Office warns if 50 per cent of missing patients return and demand grows at 3.2 per cent a year then the list could surge above 12million. But should the NHS manage to increase treatments dished out by more than 10 per cent a year then the list should stabilise at 8million in 2024 before falling slightly, they suggested
The proportion of cancer patients starting treatment within a month fell to the lowest level since records began in September, latest figures show. Records were started in 2009. The health service's own standards set out that 96 per cent of people should begin treatment, such as chemotherapy and immunotherapy, within 30 days of it being approved
In total 18million Britons have had a booster jab so far and, after yesterday's guidance change, all 53million adults over 18 will be eligible eventually. At the current rate of 2.4million jabs per week, it would take until March to get everyone boosted
Despite the total A&E admissions in England being just two per cent more than August and equal to the number of people who came forward during the same month (October) in 2019, 7,059 patients were forced to wait more than 12 hours to be seen at A&E. The record-high figure is 40 per cent more than the 5,024 forced to wait that long one month earlier
Noting the target that everyone should have received an offer of a third Covid vaccine by the end of January, Mr Javid added: 'This is a huge thing we are trying to achieve - it is essential that we do this.'
But doctors have warned other aspects of their work will have to take a backseat as they shift to pritoritising vaccines.
Mr Javid famously entered into a war of words with GPs earlier this year, demanding they increase the number of face-to-face appointments and, at one-point, threatening the profession with a 'name and shame' system for underperforming surgeries.
Responding to the increased booster drive, vice chairman of the Royal College of GPs, Gary Howson hinted that decisions will need to be made on what kind of doctors can provide said: 'GPs are already working to full capacity at the moment.
'And if we're going to divert our attention to the vaccination programme then there are some decisions that have to be made as to where we have most clinical value.'
Nodding to face-to-face appointments, Dr Howson added that GPs will have to prioritise some elements of their work in the coming months and called for greater Government support to slash the bureaucracy that eats into patient care.
'GPs are under immense pressure - we carried out 34million consultations in October, 2million more than September and 7million more than August and two thirds were face to face,' he said.
'We need to understand what we will be able to stop doing. Tick box exercises, audits, and things that take us away from work and we need the
