How Covid vaccine will be rolled out

DERBYSHIRE health chiefs have welcomed the imminent rollout of a Covid vaccine and say residents will begin to be vaccinated in the next few weeks.

However, they have reiterated that our hospitals are still under extreme pressure and that residents need to continue to follow Covid measures to avoid a third wave in January, with the county over the second peak.

The rollout of the approved Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine will begin next week at Royal Derby Hospital and Chesterfield Royal Hospital. This will see the most at-risk patients vaccinated along with healthcare workers. NHS staff who are more at risk due to their own medical conditions will be prioritised.

Another phase of the rollout in the county and city, coordinated by Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust (DCHS), will be local vaccination services. This will involve vaccination hubs being set up at GP practices, local authority buildings (which could include schools, care homes and leisure centres), as well as roving teams.

Roving teams are thought to be ruled out for the Pfizer vaccine due to difficulties in transporting it – it must be stored at -70C. Such crews are thought to be a key part of the rollout of vaccines not requiring hyper-cold storage, such as the Oxford and AstraZeneca vaccine.

GP practices will be working together across the county to nominate sites from which they will deliver vaccines to respective registered patients, focusing on the most at risk first. In total, through GP practices working together, 1,000 vaccination centres will be set up across England, with patients invited to come to have the vaccine.

The third strand of the rollout across Derby and Derbyshire will be large-scale vaccination centres, such as sports and conference centres. Derby Arena on Pride Park will be one of these mass-vaccination hubs.

Derby and Derbyshire’s Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has provided an insight into how many vaccines the county could look at administering per day.

It included a paper on the proposed vaccination rollout in South Yorkshire and Bassetlaw area. That neighbouring area will have two mass vaccination hubs, 16 semifixed units and 130 mobile sites aiming to administer 5,000 vaccines a day over the course of 10 months.

Tracy Allen, chief executive of DCHS said in a trust meeting yesterady: “I am incredibly pleased by the approval by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency this week of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and we are expecting approval soon of the Oxford and AstraZeneca one as well. The NHS is now gearing up to deliver the largest mass vaccination campaign that we will ever have undertaken.

“What is going on is some very, very complicated logistical planning around how to get the best coverage for priority cohorts with all the challenges logistically of transporting the Pfizer vaccine that needs to be managed through a real tight and difficult cold chain in terms of how it is stored and how it is moved and how quickly it is used.

“I have got real assurance that Derby and Derbyshire communities and our health and care workforces should feel very confident that we are in a great position to get going with this over the next two or three weeks.

“We are in Tier 3 and we have seen a very significant increase in NHS pressure over the last six weeks. The good news is that position has seemed to begin to turn around. Rates across all of Derbyshire are beginning to decrease and...we have got rates below the English average across Derby and Derbyshire.

“The same thing is beginning to be apparent in terms of hospital admissions, that track two or three weeks behind the peak of infections. The position is stabilising and while we have still got very significant pressure we do seem to have reached and got over the second peak.

“Whilst the vaccine offers us huge hope going forward we must maintain compliance with the national

restrictions and local vigilance and ‘hands, face, space’ because otherwise we could be back into a wave three before we know it in January.”

Trust board papers say the organisation is accelerating its vaccine rollout planning to start administering vaccines before Christmas.

Prem Singh, DCHS chairman, said: “It continues to be challenging, and I must say, this time round in surge two, it feels a lot harder. It feels harder because of the pressure on our services and our staff is compounded by winter, by staff testing, by flu vaccinations and by Covid-19 vaccinations.

“Our staff are exhausted, they genuinely are. We are really concerned about them. They are working really hard to respond not only to the challenges of Covid-19 but also trying to maintain a semblance of normality.

“Unfortunately though, the Thursday clapping has gone and I also believe the public is not as forgiving – to an extent. However, that is also understandable because this wretched virus is wearing us all down.

“There is hope with a new vaccine coming on stream and I am confident we will get through this, but we must maintain and comply with all the measures that are required to keep ourselves and our loved ones and our communities safe. I know it is going to be different for Christmas

this year. It is going to be difficult for all of us.”

The trust has said a key issue in the rollout of mass vaccination will be staff shortages, with many employees being transferred from usual duties to help deploy it.

On Wednesday Councillor Barry Lewis, leader of Derbyshire County Council said mass vaccination plans for Derbyshire have been drawn up, including a shortlist of centres across the county and Derby where these will be rolled out.

Dr Avi Bhatia, CCG chair, has also warned: “It is important to say that the vaccines are a tremendous step forward and offer us light at the end of the tunnel but the virus is still out there and the risk it represents is undiminished.

“It is likely to be several months before the vaccine has been delivered to the most vulnerable and higher priority groups in our local population, which means that most people will continue to be at risk. This also means that the advice on prevention and protection including social distancing and “hands, face, space” is even more important.

“We must be aware that most people will not be vaccinated before the seasonal period and therefore not protected and we must continue to be vigilant, particularly if visiting elderly relatives or others most at risk during the seasonal festivities.”