We were part of a wave one site at a hospital and it was hard work setting everything up. Once it got going it has been brilliant. Everyone who works there loves being there, because it’s so positive.
We don’t really have a typical day as it varies on how much vaccine we are given. We can’t order, we just get told: ‘You’re having this.’ So some weeks we’ll get two to three deliveries, other weeks it will be just one with one box of each of the Oxford/AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccines.
Often you don’t know what’s coming until the week before. There have also been problems with syringes not being sent. We call people when we know what deliveries we are getting, and we’re also doing some drive-through clinics now for people who are housebound, but they can get into a car. They’re driven here and we’ll go to them in the car to give them the vaccine.
‘A real push’
Within our PCN [Primary Care Network] we’ve got quite an elderly population, so we’re ok at the moment in terms of schedule and are on groups 3 and 4 now – the over 75s and over 70s. We had a real push to get the care homes done and those were finished last week as they’re the most vulnerable.
People want to come in and are really pleased to be there. A lot of them will be saying it’s only the second time they’ve been out since March – and the first time would have been for their flu vaccination in autumn. They’re really grateful and say ‘I can’t thank you enough’.
It’s such a nice place to work because often in this job we have to tell people things we can’t do, such as having to cancel an operation, so to be able to tell people they can come in for their vaccine now has been a massive morale booster for staff.
‘Still frightened’
People are still really frightened though. It will be interesting to see what effect people having the vaccine will have on whether they feel like they can come to see their GP or go to the hospital for non-Covid related issues because so many people stayed away during the first wave.
As long we get given the vaccine we’re happy to work. We’ll be working on Saturday and will work the following weekend as well if we can, because it just gets it done. We want to get people vaccinated so they feel safer. We’re feeling incredibly positive on the ground, it’s just the bits we can’t control that are difficult.
Read the full article here: https://inews.co.uk/news/health/vaccination-front-line-dont-know-how-much-vaccine-arriving-week-before-838524
