HSE IT system for booking vaccines still not working

An email, signed by Dr Nuala O’Connor of the Irish College of General Practitioners, above,  and Dr Denis McCauley of the Irish Medical Organisation, states it will be the end of February by the time the 3,500 GP teams are vaccinated.

Further delays have hit the HSE’s IT system for booking vaccines with thousands of GPs still locked out of the process.

A new IT system managed by IBM and Salesforce for the HSE to allow GPs, and later the general public, to book vaccines was first due to go live on Friday, then pushed back to Monday.

But up to late last evening, GPs watched their emails for the link in vain.

An email sent to GPs shortly after 9pm on Monday night said: “It is imperative that we can select GP data specifically and unfortunately despite best efforts it is not completed. The HSE IT Team is prioritising this work and we will provide the link as soon as it becomes available to us.” 

The email, signed by Dr Nuala O’Connor of the Irish College of General Practitioners (ICGP) and Dr Denis McCauley of the Irish Medical Organisation states it will be the end of February by the time the 3,500 GP teams are vaccinated.

The Irish Examiner understands talks between the HSE,  the IMO and the ICGP continued late into the night yesterday.

Dr Marie Scully said the delays have left GPs demoralised.

The Navan GP said: “We’ve heard rumours about IT glitches. Even if they told us what is going on then it would not be so bad. People feel really devalued.” 

Some GPs have been vaccinated at their local hospital. This happened in Cork, Kerry, Dublin, and Meath on an ad-hoc basis if a hospital had excess vaccine supply.

Dr Scully said: “Our practice nurses, who are every bit as at risk as we are, are really worried because the level of transmission in the community is so high. They were all ready to go on Monday with their PPE cards in the office ready to sign up.” 

Dozens of GPs shared their worries on social media yesterday, including senior doctors.

President of the Irish Medical Council, Dr Rita Doyle said: “GPs and their team are desperate to get vaccinated. We were promised access on portal yesterday — not one word until 10pm last night and to date today no notifications, very disappointed.” 

Meanwhile, the HSE has confirmed the out-of-hours clinics, Southdoc Blackpool, in Cork City and Southdoc Listowel in Co Kerry, are now set to reopen.

Sinn Féin TD Thomas Gould, who has campaigned for the re-opening, said: “The HSE themselves warned this closure posed a serious risk to unnecessary hospital presentations. This is extremely important given the vulnerable positions our Cork hospitals now find themselves in.”