Patients moved to tears by vaccination relief

Around 165,000 people across the area had received their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine by February 1, county councillors were told at a health scrutiny meeting on Monday.

And hundreds of people across the area have answered the call to assist with the biggest vaccination programme the NHS has ever carried out – including intensive care nurses and local councillors.

Neil Carr, senior responsible officer for the Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent vaccination programme, told the Healthy Staffordshire Select Committee: “Through all partners coming together the response has been nothing short of amazing and I thank everyone for that.

“In Staffordshire to date we have delivered 177,609 vaccines, first dose is 165,000. Delivered this week just gone it’s 58,000 vaccines. We have 56,000 scheduled for this week – we are well on target.

“I was at the vaccination centre in Tunstall on Saturday and there were a couple of nurses there that normally work in intensive care. I said to them ‘I thought you would have wanted some time off to rest, given what you’re experiencing’.

“What they said to me took the wind out of my sail – ‘seeing the people, seeing the smile, getting that camaraderie, is a shot in my arm and I do it because it gives me the strength to continue on in the intensive care unit’.

“We have got people who have come forward from all aspects of health and social care. Not only are citizens relieved to get the vaccine, but staff are finding it very reinforcing and very rewarding. It really has lifted morale.”

The meeting was told that in some cases 1,150 patients could be seen in a single six-hour clinic. As of Thursday 86 per cent of over 80s had received their first dose – and 100 per cent of care homes had been visited by primary care networks.

Councillor Kath Perry said: “It’s excellent – I’m only hearing good reports. We have an excellent (vaccination site) in Great Wyrley run through the pharmacy and I’m a volunteer myself. We have about 80 volunteers.

“I want to say how pleasing it is to see the recipients when they have had their injections. The relief on their faces, you can’t describe it. It’s so heartwarming. Some of them cry, they’re so emotional.”

Other councillors have been driving residents to vaccination centres if they have no-one else to take them.

Councillor Jill Hood said: “I volunteer almost every day taking residents to the County Showground and yesterday I went to Burslem. People are over the moon with the service that they’re getting.

“The gratitude they’re showing is overwhelming.”

Hospital hubs at Royal Stoke and Harplands in the north, St George’s in Stafford and Queen’s in Burton have used to vaccinate health and care workers. The Kingston Centre in Stafford opened as a large vaccination facility on Monday, following on from the opening of Tunstall’s venue at the Daniel Platt Centre. Another venue is set to open at Whitemore Lakes in Alrewas next week to serve the south east of the county.

Around 52 per cent of people are expected to be vaccinated at one of the 23 GP-led community sites across the area however.

Vaccination programme lead Lynn Millar said: “What we focus on in Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent is access. We do have our large scale sites which certainly have a place but in the first priority groups – the over 80s, the care homes, the over 70s – we want to make sure they have access to local sites within 10 miles of residency.

“That’s how we’ve been able to achieve such high figures across our over-80s, because these are trusted. They’re used to going to GP surgeries for the flu vaccine and the same goes for their Covid vaccine.

“I think at least 75 per cent of our over 70s have been vaccinated in Staffordshire. The big proportion we’re working through at the moment in terms of volume are the care home and local authority workforce. We are starting to think about going forward into the remaining tiers but we won’t move into any tier before everybody in the preceding tiers has been vaccinated.

“We will see the (large sites) come into their own as we see the younger cohort. This is where access will be seven days a week, eight to eight, so people can manage their Covid vaccine around their work.

“Our volunteer workforce are really important and we need a continual flow of volunteers to keep these sites open. It has been a fantastic effort to get these sites up and running.”