Information relating to unused Covid-19 vaccines: FOI release

Information request and response under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002


Information requested

1. details of the amount of COVID vaccine that has been unused and then discarded over the past six months in the NHS Scotland COVID vaccination programme. 

2. Amount (doses) per week of vaccine given to people between 01/02/2021 and 30/7/2021.

3. Amount (doses) per week of vaccine not given to people and discarded 01/02/2021 and 30/7/2021.

Response

Below if a copy of the information requested.

  • Wastage data was extracted on August 16th at 11am from a management information dashboard maintained by NHS National Services Scotland.
  • Vaccination data was extracted on August 16th at 7:30am by Public Health Scotland. These data are hosted on their open data site.
  • All data refers to vaccines delivered to and administered in Scotland.
  • There are several reasons a vaccine may not be administered before being discarded, and therefore ‘wasted’, such as issues with storage, expired doses, vial size and/or specific clinical situations where there may be some dose loss.
  • All products currently being used in Scotland are included in these figures, i.e. Pfizer, AstraZeneca, and Moderna.
  • Wastage from GP practices is not included, as GPs do not record this information.
  • Whilst every effort is made to minimise and record vaccine wastage, there may be some wastage that is not recorded by staff at the end of a vaccination clinic or some differences in how NHS Boards record waste. This is particularly true for wastage figures at the beginning of the programme. However, there is no better way to estimate “true” wastage.

Week ending

Weekly total of administered vaccines

Weekly total of wasted vaccines

Percentage of wasted doses

07/02/2021

293767

716

0.2%

14/02/2021

392178

958

0.2%

21/02/2021

213139

736

0.3%

28/02/2021

207613

806

0.4%

07/03/2021

202948

401

0.2%

14/03/2021

177545

767

0.4%

21/03/2021

336560

1024

0.3%

28/03/2021

334754

692

0.2%

04/04/2021

279404

627

0.2%

11/04/2021

237243

560

0.2%

18/04/2021

245912

551

0.2%

25/04/2021

337665

738

0.2%

02/05/2021

309080

822

0.3%

09/05/2021

242898

3174

1.3%

16/05/2021

279874

1018

0.4%

23/05/2021

299798

2738

0.9%

30/05/2021

321267

979

0.3%

06/06/2021

342189

915

0.3%

13/06/2021

326922

1326

0.4%

20/06/2021

269905

1027

0.4%

27/06/2021

222747

2114

0.9%

04/07/2021

186205

2385

1.3%

11/07/2021

184320

1295

0.7%

18/07/2021

133017

1828

1.4%

25/07/2021

130033

1381

1.1%

01/08/2021

136568

4448

3.3%

Total

6643551

34026

0.51%


About FOI
The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

Contact

Please quote the FOI reference
Central Enquiry Unit
Email: ceu@gov.scot
Phone: 0300 244 4000

The Scottish Government
St Andrews House
Regent Road
Edinburgh
EH1 3DG

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