• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre

Improving brain health: the future in mind

MENUMENU
  • About
    • About
    • Our People
    • Timeline of our key achievements since 2017
    • Core facilities
    • Management and partners
    • Work with us
    • Contact
  • Departments
    • NIHR Oxford Cognitive Health Clinical Research Facility
    • Brain Health Centre
    • Oxford Precision Psychiatry Lab (OxPPL)
    • Oxford Dementia and Ageing Research (OxDARE)
    • Treatment Resistant Depression Clinic
    • Experimental Medicine and Industry Partnership (EMIP)
  • Research Themes
    • Overview of Research Themes
    • Adult Mental Health
    • Older Adults and Dementia
    • Precision Psychological Therapies
    • Clinical Research Infrastructure and Experimental Medicine
    • Informatics and Digital Health
    • Neuroimaging and Cognitive Neuroscience
    • Patient and Public Involvement
    • Training theme
    • Theme Leads
  • COVID-19 Research
    • Overview
    • News
    • COVID-19 & clinical management of mental health issues
  • News & Events
    • News
    • Blog
    • Training & Events
    • Psychiatry department seminars
  • Training Hub
  • Patients & Public
    • About Patient and Public Involvement
    • Shape our research
    • Take part in our research
    • Resources for researchers
    • Resources for the public
    • Patient and Public Involvement Strategy
    • Young people’s involvement
You are here: Home / News / COVID-19 research / Covid-19 vaccination programme: where do people with mental health difficulties lie within the order of priority?

Covid-19 vaccination programme: where do people with mental health difficulties lie within the order of priority?

18th February 2021

A new blog authored by mental health clinicians and researchers in the Department of Psychiatry and Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, and published in thebmjopinion, discusses the priority groups for COVID-19 vaccinations.

The news of the first Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) approved vaccine for COVID-19 on 2 December 2020, with plans for large-scale implementation of a vaccination programme in the UK and other countries, has brought great hope and expectation.

Vaccination will be a crucial step in reducing infection rates and offering a realistic way out of pandemic restrictions. However, there are limited supplies of vaccine, the logistics are challenging, and each country needs to prioritise who receives it first and in what order. 

Guidance on priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination in the UK includes severe mental illness (in priority group 6), but the focus here and in other countries is on the single highest priority criterion met. In the real world, many people have multiple risks factors across mental and physical health, and we already know that they have a low uptake of preventative health strategies. Without more specific prioritisation and strategies to support uptake, our blog highlights the very real risk that this most vulnerable group will simply get left behind.

Dr Katharine Smith, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist

Read the full blog at thebmjopinion.

For more information on vaccine prioritisation and mental health.

Filed Under: COVID-19 research, News, Vaccination and vaccine hesitancy

Primary Sidebar

Tweets by OxHealthBRC
Follow @OxHealthBRC

Post categories

Footer

Follow us

  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Improving brain health: the future in mind

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is a partnership between Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Oxford. We are part of the Oxford Academic Health Science Centre.

Oxford Academic Health Science Centre
  • Sitemap
  • Accessibility
  • Disclaimer
  • Cookies
  • Contact

© 2022 NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre · Log in

Cookies

This site uses cookies: See our privacy policy