North Cotswolds PCN passes milestone of completing 10,000 vaccinations!

Dr Hywel Furn Davies. Clinical Director

As the days gets lighter so does the hope of those living in the North Cotswolds as their vaccination site at the North Cotswolds Hospital reaches the tremendous milestone of completing their 10,000th vaccination. Made possible by the dedicated staff, volunteers and five surgeries coming together to deliver this extensive programme. Starting on the 16th December the site has completed cohorts 1 to 4 laid out by the Government. This includes; those over the age of 65, clinically extremely vulnerable patients care home residents and social care/NHS staff. We are making big in roads into the 18 to 64 patients with chronic diseases and hope to complete over the next 2-3 weeks. This week we are starting our first second doses for our patients who received their first vaccination before Christmas.

Clinical Pharmacist David Horkan has personally drawn up nearly every single one of these vaccinations. Having vaccinated almost 50% of our adult population. The site has used both Pfizer and AstraZeneca to deliver the vaccinations.

Within the Cotswolds, uptake of the vaccination has been very high with 98.1% of those over 80 within the five practices having had the vaccination. If you have not yet had your vaccination and are in one of the top six cohorts please contact your surgery to book in. If you are not in one these first cohorts, please wait to be contacted by your surgery to be booked in. We appreciate getting lots of different letters can be confusing but your practices will be contacting patients when the time is right. We are awaiting confirmation of our deliveries for the next few weeks in the next few days. To help facilitate this process we will give you regular updates.

The programme would not be so successful if it wasn’t for the dedicated volunteers who have continuously helped direct patients both inside and outside of the site in difficult weather conditions. So far over 100 willing people have volunteered their time and persistently go out of their way to ensure the system runs smoothly and patients have a positive experience. The fire service men and women in Moreton in Marsh have all volunteered their time also creating an amazing community spirit as everyone pulls together. Although you can’t see their smiles through the masks the volunteers are always cheerful and willing to help! If anyone would like to volunteer, please email jess.campbell1@nhs.net who is doing a wonderful job at coordinating the volunteers.

Finally, a huge thank you to your practices who have moved so fast to get vaccination invites out often with only a few days’ notice. This whole process has been a real team effort across the PCN. But I would like to thank you our patients who have attended for vaccination in all weathers and joining the effort to lift our community out of this Covid pandemic. Together we will succeed, and hopefully enjoy better times that are just around the corner.

North Cotswold’s Primary Care Network figures and the PCN vaccination team.

The team has been very grateful for the frequent deliveries of fresh cake, biscuits and bacon sandwiches which had kept their spirits high!