Two hospitals and three pharmacies will soon start rolling out virus vaccine
THEY JOIN 16 OTHER SITES IN COUNTY
TWO further Derbyshire hospitals and three pharmacies in the county will begin rolling out Covid-19 vaccines soon.
They would join 16 community sites which are already administering the vaccines, including Derby Arena, and alongside Royal Derby and Chesterfield Royal hospitals.
It represents an aim to further step up the vaccine rollout and hopes to hit the mid-February deadline for giving jabs to all those in the top four priority groups, of which there are nearly a quarter of a million people in Derbyshire.
These groups are: Care home residents and staff; frontline health and social care workers and residents aged 80+; residents aged 75+; residents aged 70+ and all those between 16 to 69 who are extremely clinically vulnerable.
Will Jones, chief operating officer at Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, who is leading the vaccine rollout, made the announcement in a Derbyshire County Council scrutiny meeting this week.
He said that Kingsway Hospital in Derby and Walton Hospital in Chesterfield would become two new vaccination hubs and that three community pharmacies in Hatton, Horsley and Derby would also begin administering jabs.
Mr Jones said local authorities were now looking to vaccinate patients who are housebound and cannot access any of the community hubs or hospitals.
He said he was “absolutely confident” that vaccine supplies would improve and Derbyshire’s allocation would continue to increase, acknowledging that there had been recent issues.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service has asked health officials for the names of the pharmacies which will be rolling out Covid vaccines and for when this process will start and who they will be offering them too. NHS England is handling this and has not yet responded as of this article’s publication. Joined-Up Care Derbyshire, a combination of health authorities in the county and city, said the two proposed hospital hubs would focus on frontline health and social care workers in the first instance and they would not initially be offering appointments to the public. It could not yet confirm a start date.
A JUCD spokesperson said: “We are excited at the success of the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination across Derby and Derbyshire, and expect this will be continued with the possibility of opening of two more hospital hub sites in the next few weeks.
“We hope to be able to announce the location of these sites, in Chesterfield and Derby, as soon as they have completed final checks and are ready to begin vaccinations.
“Both sites will focus on vaccinating frontline health and social care workers, and the sites will not initially offer vaccination appointments for the public.
“These new hubs will also support other parts of the JUCD system, where teams are all working so hard to deliver the vaccine.
A spokesperson for the Derbyshire
Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Kingsway Hospital in Derby, said: “Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust has expressed an interest in hosting a hospital hub, offering Covid-19 vaccinations to patients being supported through our hospital-based services alongside local health and social care colleagues.
“We are in the process of discussing this with colleagues at a regional level and hope to be able to start vaccinations soon.
“Unfortunately, given the limitations of our small hospital site, we would not be providing vaccinations to members of the public”.
A spokesperson for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Walton
Hospital in Chesterfield, said: “We have expressed an interest in running a hospital hub for the Covid-19 vaccination programme at one of our sites and subject to all the right approvals at national level for establishing a hub.
“Subject to that approval, such a hospital hub would predominantly focus on vaccinations for frontline health and social care staff, at least initially. But it could also give us scope to work in liaison with the local primary care networks (groups of GP surgeries), and the hospital hubs already in place at Chesterfield Royal Hospital the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, to support in the vaccination of people identified in the most-at-risk groups at some point ahead.”
Both [hospital] sites will focus on vaccinating frontline health and social care workers. JUCD