‘It didn’t hurt!’ Delighted Jean among first to receive vaccine
A Bath woman was among the first in the area to receive the Covid vaccine when the rollout began last week.
The programme started in Bath and North East Somerset at Combe Down Surgery near Bath and other local sites are expected to offer it in the new year.
Jean, from Bath, said: “It didn’t hurt. I’m really pleased to get this done.”
Bath and North East Somerset, Swindon and Wiltshire Clinical Commissioning Group has said the process of vaccine rollout across the region is complex.
A spokesman for the CCG said: “The Covid-19 vaccination programme began at Combe Down Surgery near Bath last week and other sites in the local area are expected to begin offering vaccinations in the new year.
“People should wait to receive an invitation from the NHS for an appointment rather than calling their local GP surgery.”
The Steam Museum in Swindon, along with the Corn Exchange in Devizes, Rowden Surgery in Chippenham and the surgery in Bath were the first local sites to begin offering the vaccine.
More than 900 people at each site were expected to have been given the recently approved Covid-19 vaccination between December 16 to December 23. All patients will have to return for the second dose of the vaccine in about three weeks.
At this stage in the vaccination programme, only those people aged 80 and over, as well as some frontline health and care staff, will be invited to receive the vaccine.
Over the coming weeks and months, other members of the community will have the opportunity to get vaccinated.
The community vaccinations come just a week after the Great Western Hospital in Swindon became the first local venue to offer the vaccine to staff and patients.
Gill May, director of nursing and quality, said: “Never before has there been a vaccination programme as ambitious as this, and it really is humbling to have been able to see everything come together so quickly and efficiently.
“These community sites are among the first of their kind, and I know that NHS teams in other
areas of the country will be looking to us as they arrange their own vaccination programmes.
“We all know there is a long way to go until we can confidently say that coronavirus is no longer a threat, but we’ve taken the first steps, and it’s important to remem
ber that even the most intimidating of journeys start with that first step forward.”
Bath and North East Somerset has so far remained in tier 2 after the second coronavirus lockdown but local health experts have said they’d expect the tier to rise.