Private schools were not prioritised for Covid vaccine, NHS says

Private schools were not prioritised in Manchester’s Covid vaccination programme, the organisation responsible for the rollout has confirmed.

Four private and 10 state schools were selected for the programme to vaccinate 11 to 15-year-olds in the first four weeks of the scheme, which started at the end September and was completed within two months.

The first students to be vaccinated in Manchester were at Didsbury High School – a state-funded free school – followed by two private girls schools.

READ MORE: ‘Not a chance’ – Parents react to younger children being offered Covid vaccine

Some state schools which were due to vaccinate their students in the first couple of weeks asked to postpone as they could not accommodate the visit.

But by November, students at all of Manchester’s schools were offered the jab.

It comes after councillors were told that schools with more ‘wherewithal’ were the first to put themselves forward for the programme and get the vaccines.

Members of the children and young people scrutiny committee were ‘shocked’ by the claims that private schools received the vaccine before state schools.

They also learnt that because these schoolchildren received their first jab before others, they have also been the first to receive their second dose.

Private schools were not prioritised, the scrutiny committee was told, but the vaccine had to be rolled out ‘very, very quickly’ under government guidance.

Ben Aspinall, who is the Covid vaccination programme lead for Manchester’s Local Care Organisation (LCO), addressed the claims at the scrutiny meeting.

He said: “We were told in September that we needed to introduce the guidance very, very quickly and we asked all the schools in Manchester when they would be available to be part of a timetable and a programme.

“Those that stepped forward first were the ones we put onto the list. And then we extended the list from there.

“Unfortunately, some of the schools with wherewithal came to us first.

“But we were under an imposition to meet strict deadlines in order of making that timetable work.

“So we went back to all of the schools, made sure that every single school had an offer so 100 pc of the schools in Manchester got the offer and we built them into a timetable that then moved forwards.

“In delivering the second phase of the vaccination in January onwards, what we needed to do was make sure that pupils that were receiving a second vaccination had a 12-week gap between the first and second dose.

“So ostensibly the programme of the second round tended to mirror what was in the first so that we had as many eligible children as possible as part of that.”

Labour councillor Julie Reid, who chairs the children and young people scrutiny committee, said there was a ‘sharp intake of breath’ when members found out.

She said: “I’m not happy with it at all. I feel that it was not a good enough explanation – they were time limited and they came back to them first.

“I don’t accept that. It seems very, very odd to me.”

Speaking after the meeting, councillor Tina Hewitson said she was ‘shocked’.

The Ardwick councillor, whose question prompted the response at last week’s meeting, said the committee members were ‘not happy about it whatsoever’.

The LCO which runs the in-school vaccination programme in Manchester through the NHS school health service has now confirmed that the first school in Manchester to be part of the vaccination programme was a state school.

The next two were private schools which already had visits from the school vaccination team booked in for the HPV vaccine programme on those dates.

Jo is a Local Democracy Reporter covering councils, the NHS and other local authorities in Manchester and Greater Manchester. He has previously covered local government in Bolton, Bury, Salford and Wigan.

You can read more of his stories here and follow him on social media on Facebook or Twitter.

If you want to contact Jo directly, you can email him at [email protected].

The school vaccination programme continued until the end of November and four private schools were among the last in the timetable for the local rollout.

A Manchester LCO spokesperson said: “All secondary schools in Manchester were visited within a two month programme from the end of September.

“No priority was given to any group of schools, it was about ensuring every school had the offer of a visit within the timescale.

“We worked in partnership with head teachers, using dates already in place for other childhood vaccination sessions in schools to minimise disruption where possible and rearranging when there were Covid outbreaks or schools requested more time to prepare for the visit.

“Through the hard work of our vaccination team we made sure every eligible pupil in the city was offered the protection of the Covid-19 vaccine as quickly as possible.”

To get the latest email updates from the Manchester Evening News, click here.