Covid lockdown diaries: 'Vaccine helps us fight back' says GP

Doctors go into medicine to help people, but until the vaccine came along, Bristol GP Simon Atkins says he felt "powerless" and frustrated watching so many people suffer with Covid-19. This is lockdown life in his own words.

"The arrival of the vaccines has been brilliant for us. For the first time in the whole of the pandemic we are able to do something for people that we know is definitely going to help combat the virus.

"Until this point, if people were sick at home there was little we could do apart from give them advice about managing their symptoms and about when and how to get a test.

"If they were seriously ill and went into hospital, even there, the treatment was largely supportive as there was no specific drug for this virus.

"Finally, since Covid-19 first came along, we can do something, finally we can fight back.

"Because we have the vaccines now, everybody on our staff has a new sense of energy and enthusiasm.

"We've had no end of volunteers from every department in the practice come in on Saturdays to help with the vaccination clinics; be that with administering the jabs themselves, meeting and greeting the patients, or helping run the car park.

"We are always dependent on when the vaccine delivery comes. Two or three weeks back we had two deliveries - one a week after the other - mostly of the Pfizer vaccine.

"The Pfizer vaccine has to be used within three-and-a-half days so if we get a delivery on a Thursday, for example, we and our neighbouring practice open up on a Saturday and blitz it. We text and ring people and invite them down.

"It's about being flexible. On one night recently the nurses were running a clinic and there were two jabs spare so they picked up the phone and called two people on our list and asked if they could get there in half an hour and they did.

"People have also been very keen to get their flu jab - we've had one of the best years ever in terms of take up. People seem understandably keen to get as much protection as possible."

He said up to 1,500 people could be seen at weekend clinics.

Dr Atkins said patients and doctors had enjoyed meeting face-to-face again.

"In the first lockdown things changed almost overnight and we were instructed to have remote appointments as much as possible.

"But I like being a family doctor, and meeting patients in person. That was taken away.

"I'm looking forward to when things get back to normal, and the vaccine gives us hope that that won't be too far away."

Dr Atkins is a partner at Fishponds Family practice in East Bristol, which has almost 13,000 patients on its books.