ADVICE to ministers that giving a second Covid-19 jab should not be a priority is “grossly unfair” to the patients who are in greatest danger from the virus, GP leaders have warned.

As the approval of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine was announced on Wednesday, experts advising the government, including the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), said that the focus should be on maximising the number of at-risk people who receive a first dose of either vaccine, rather than providing the required two doses in as short a time as possible.

This now means that, for both vaccines, the second dose will be administered within 12 weeks of the first.

Medical professionals have warned that the delay will cause huge problems for tens of thousands of partially vaccinated elderly and vulnerable people who were due to receive their second dose of the Pfizer jab in the coming days and weeks, and will need to be rebooked.

British Medical Association (BMA) GP committee chairman Dr Richard Vautrey said: “It is grossly and patently unfair to tens of thousands of our most at-risk patients to now try to reschedule their appointments.

“The decision to ask GPs, at such short notice, to rebook patients for three months hence will also cause huge logistical problems.

“For example, to make contact with even just 2,000 elderly or vulnerable patients will take a team of five staff at a practice about a week and that’s simply untenable.”

Dr Vautrey said that the BMA would support practices that honour the existing appointments for the follow-up vaccination and he called for the government to do the same.

He added: “The government must see that it’s only right that existing bookings for the oldest and most vulnerable members of our society are honoured, and it must also as soon as possible publish a scientifically validated justification for its new approach.”

The criticism follows Pfizer saying that it assessed its vaccine only on a two-dose regimen in which people were given the jabs three weeks apart, and that there was “no data to demonstrate that protection after the first dose is sustained after 21 days.”

Latest figures show that 786,000 people received a Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 jab between December 8 and last Sunday, NHS England said.

Doctors’ Association UK also expressed “grave concerns” at the change in government policy, writing to Health Secretary Matt Hancock that the shift “undermines the consent process, as well as completely failing to follow the science.”