ICB makes changes following Covid jab death

Changes to processes have been announced by NHS Suffolk and North East Essex ICB following the death of a 27 year old man from a Covid vaccination.

(c) Daniel Schludi/Unsplash

(c) Daniel Schludi/Unsplash

James Last died in April 2021 from a blood clot after receiving the AstraZeneca vaccine. An investigation into his death found he was wrongly prioritised for the vaccination.

A week after his inoculation, advice was changed to recommend that people under 30 should not be given the AZ vaccine if an alternative was available after reports emerged in Europe linking the drug to rare blood clots.

During an ICB meeting on 25 March, medical director Dr Andrew Kelso said a number of changes had been made to learn from Last's death.

He said: ‘We have put a number of actions in place already and will continue to work on the rest of them.

‘We have made some, I think, significant changes in the way that we use shared data, to improve the safety of the use of shared data.

‘We have adopted the Data Provision Notice which address how practices manage data when patients die in over 70% of our practices and are continuing to work with the remainder of GP practices to ensure that they have safe and compassionate processes in place that process patients' information after death in a responsible way, and have escalated to the NHSE National Quality Board on the recommendations that were made and will continue to work with them to support them in assessing and reacting in a way that they think is suitable.' 

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