District Dispatch Pharmacies to join vaccination programme

Since, last week’s district dispatch, the vaccination hubs in Selsey and Tangmere have gone live and our NHS colleagues have been busy vaccinating residents across our district. I know vaccinations are at the forefront of all of our minds and so we are keen to share any updates we have with you. At the moment, the focus is on vaccinating residents and staff in care homes for older people, those aged 80 and over, and frontline health and care staff. I’m sure you will have seen the Government has announced that once the majority of people in these groups have been vaccinated, they have the flexibility to offer vaccinations to the next two groups – those aged 70 and over and clinically extremely vulnerable people. This will help to keep up the pace of the vaccine roll-out and ensure no vaccination appointments are unused.

It has also been announced Boots, Superdrug and several independent stores will be the first of hundreds of community pharmacies to offer vaccinations.

We’ve been told in Sussex that the first community vaccination services are due to come online in the next fortnight, which is great news! Some people will also start to receive a letter from the national booking service inviting them to book appointments at the large scale vaccination centres. The Sussex centre is about to open and some residents in the north of the district may have received invitations to attend the Epsom Racecourse vaccination centre that went live last week. We’ll start to see more large-scale centres and pharmacyled vaccination services come online and these will be added to the national booking system. The NHS has released a useful video explaining how you will be contacted and what happens if you miss your appointment: https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=wtdeiok46gm&feature=y outu.be

What is concerning is the reports of a vaccine scam. Some scammers are asking people to send their financial details to pay for vaccines. This will never happen and the vaccines will only be available through the NHS. The NHS will never ask for your bank account, card details, your PIN or banking password. They will also never arrive unannounced at your home and they will never ask you to prove your identity by sending copies of personal documents.

I also want to update you on some of the activities we have been leading on. Alongside our charity partners, we are working hard to support rough sleepers by providing accommodation, food and support. At the end of last year we secured a £60,000 government grant. Out of this, £32,000 will be used towards temporary accommodation for rough sleepers during the pandemic, and £28,000 will go to homeless charity, Stonepillow, to extend its Housing First team. This is a project that provides support to the most vulnerable rough sleepers, by enabling them to set up a new home for life and access the wider services they need. We have also successfully applied for a larger grant amounting to £400,000, which has gone to Stonepillow to expand their accommodation. Our rough sleeper outreach workers continue to work with our partners to offer supports. Our officers were even out every day over the Christmas period carrying out welfare checks. I want to thank our team and partners for the amazing work they do. Another key priority for us is supporting our businesses. New grant schemes are open for applications from eligible retail, hospitality and leisure business. Please visit our website: www. chichester.gov.uk/covidbusinesssupport This new Government support includes one-off top up grants for retail, hospitality and leisure businesses that are required to close. These are worth £4,000, £6,000 or £9,000 per property depending on rateable value. There is also a grant scheme available for businesses that are not required to close but are still affected and we are still issuing our business recovery grants, which you can find more about here: www.chichester. gov.uk/covidrecoverygrants