An NHS England programme to accelerate the roll-out of Covid-19 boosters in care homes has been labelled “unduly prescriptive, overly bureaucratic and underfunded” by the BMA.

NHS England is incentivising GPs to prioritise care home resident boosters with payments of up to £525 for those that are completed by 23 October.

However, the BMA said it could not endorse the programme after it failed to secure concessions from NHS England.

In its latest bulletin, the BMA said: “We fully appreciate the importance of vaccinating the most vulnerable as soon as possible, in line with JCVI guidance. However, practices and PCN groupings need to be appropriately resourced to do this workforce-intensive work.

“We recommend that practices and PCNs carefully consider the workload required to undertake this activity, and if the resources on offer are sufficient for that purpose.”

An NHS spokesperson said: “GP led teams are already taking up the incentive offered, with autumn boosters delivered to over 1,000 care homes last week – thousands more jabs than originally planned, in order to protect some of their most vulnerable communities.”

Care home residents were the first to receive their Covid-19 boosters as the autumn programme got under way last week.