NHS England has ordered a rapid acceleration of care home vaccinations in response to rising Covid outbreaks in which deaths of residents have risen to levels not seen since May. GPs have been instructed to complete all care home vaccinations by the end of this week “wherever possible” or by 24 January at the latest. The government’s original target was the end of the month. The urgent move came as new figures showed 1,200 care residents died from Covid in England in the first week of January. Weekly death tolls in Scotland and Wales have also been rising. The NHS will triple the bonus paid to doctors for every jab carried out before next Monday to £30. Doses administered next week will attract £20. One senior GP told the Guardian outbreaks were threatening to slow down delivery of the jab and that vaccination had become “a race against the virus”. “With the increased rate and spread of infections, the need to ensure that these cohorts are vaccinated as the top priority is higher than ever,” said Nikita Kanani, the NHS’s medical director of primary care in a letter to GPs, first reported by Pulse magazine. The new target is likely to be highly ambitious. Dr Anshumen Bhagat, a GP in Enfield, said his local primary care network only started vaccinating its 1,500 care home residents on Wednesday and has so far received 500 doses of the vaccine with another 400 scheduled for next week. Dr Richard Vautrey, chair of the BMA’s GP committee, said the order was “a huge ask” but added: “The increased availability of the AstraZeneca vaccine makes the task far easier. Care home residents and staff need to be vaccinated as quickly as possible and GPs and others involved in this mammoth programme will be doing everything possible to do this in the coming days.” MHA, the UK’s largest not-for-profit care home operator with 90 homes, said at least a third of its residents had been vaccinated. It added it needs several days notice to prepare consent forms and logistics for each session. The NHS said doctors may need to operate 12 hours a day, seven days per week and where there are outbreaks they must vaccinate all other staff and residents. Even a delay of a few days in getting the vaccine into care homes can mean infection. Gordon Brooks, 77, who lives at a care home in Norfolk was hospitalised with Covid on 7 January, two days before the vaccine arrived. “There were vaccinations in the community for the over 80s before Christmas but they haven’t concentrated on the care homes,” said his daughter, Emma Gilmartin. “It surprised me because my dad and others are the most vulnerable. I couldn’t believe how close he was to getting the vaccine.” One GP tasked with vaccinating 19 care homes in west London said that in some care units, up to half of residents were now sick with coronavirus and infection rates were similar to those seen in the first peak. “We are starting to see bigger, more severe, outbreaks,” Dr Anna Down, clinical lead for care homes at the Argyle practice, told the Guardian. “Supply [of the vaccine] is not going to be the issue moving forwards. It is logistics and making sure we get in there before the virus. We are pushing to do them all as soon as we can. It really feels like a race against the virus.” Down and her colleagues are working evenings and weekends but two homes have only been partially vaccinated because of outbreaks. Six more are planned by the end of this week, although again outbreaks are causing delays. The latest official data shows deaths of care home residents rising sharply. England recorded 824 Covid deaths in care homes and a further 376 care home residents died in hospitals and other settings in the week ending 8 January. Scotland recorded 113 deaths from Covid in care homes in the week ending 4 January, also the highest number since May. In Wales 57 care home residents died from Covid in care homes and hospitals in the week to 1 January and one in eight care homes reported infections.