Trust chief takes up vaccine post
Sue takes on a secondment to help with rollout of ground-breaking jab
THE chief executive of an NHS trust which provides community and mental health services has swapped her normal day job to help lead the fight against coronavirus.
Sue Harriman is chief executive at Solent NHS Trust but the former Royal Navy nurse has taken a secondment to act as chief operating officer of the Covid-19 vaccination deployment programme, which launched this week.
NHS chief executive Sir Simon Stevens said: ‘This is an important next step in our response to the Coronavirus pandemic and hospitals will shortly kick off the first phase of the largest scale vaccination campaign in our country’s history.
‘The NHS has a proven track record of delivering large scale vaccinations from the winter flu jab to BCG and, once the final hurdles are cleared and the vaccine arrives in England’s hospitals, health service staff will begin offering people this ground-breaking jab in a programme that will expand to cover the whole country in the coming months.’
Sue’s role in the deployment programme will see her be involved in the rollout of the vaccination programme, which launched on Tuesday and saw 50 hospital hubs, including one at Queen Alexandra Hospital in Cosham, give patients aged over 80 and care home workers the Pfizer vaccine.
Sue joined the NHS in 2002, after completing a BSc in Infection Prevention at the University of Hertfordshire, to become a Nurse Consultant in
Infection Prevention.
She first trained as a nurse in the Royal Navy and during her 16 year military career, she worked in both primary and secondary care, including spending five months on board a hospital ship during the 1990 Gulf War Conflict.
She has been an executive director at Solent NHS Trust for 10 years with roles including director of nursing and allied health professions, chief operating officer and managing director.
She was appointed to lead Solent NHS Trust as Chief Executive in September 2014.
She also has Masters level Management and Leadership qualifications from the University of Southampton.
After becoming chief executive at Solent NHS, she said: ‘I will never forget my roots as a nurse, caring for people and their families and friends at such important times in their lives.
‘I became a nurse because I cared deeply about helping others.’