Rollout of Covid-19 vaccine in Nottinghamshire expected to start next month

The huge mobilisation of resources is expected to be ready by Tuesday, December 1, and the local NHS is ‘poised’ to roll out the jab.

The most vulnerable people will be given priority, and the vaccines – some of which need to be stored at extremely low temperatures – will be stored at two giant hubs – one in the city and another in the north of the county.

There will also be two ‘mass vaccination’ sites, again one in the city and another in the north, as well as smaller ‘satellite’ sites and a roaming service.

In a public council meeting on Tuesday, November 24), the executive incident director at Nottingham and Nottinghamshire CCG, Sarah Carter, said staff and volunteers were being recruited.

“We’ve been working to prepare to deliver what will be, without doubt, the most unprecedented scale of vaccination programme that we’ve experienced.“We’ve got approximately 1.3/1.4 million vaccinations to deliver, over what will be quite a concertina timeline across Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

“There is some really clear classification and cohorting that the joint committee on vaccination and immunisation has asked us to focus on.

“The cohorting we’re looking to work to, in list of priority are: older adults in residential care homes and care home workers; moving to those who are over 80 years of age and health and social care workers; then all those who 75 years of age and older; then all those who are aged 70 years and over; all those 65 years of age and older; then moving to higher risk adults under 65 years of age and moderate risk adults under 65 years of age; then it goes down in age cohorts up to 18.

“It includes two vaccine supply hubs, one in the city and one in the north of the county, and a consumables hub, so the vaccine supply hub is where the vaccines are stored.

“You will have noted probably from the press that many of these vaccines require very very low temperature storage, so we’re arranging for really deep refrigeration environments in those vaccine supply hubs.

“We’re looking at two mass vaccination sites, one in the city and one in the north of the county, a number of satellite vaccination sites. There will be a roaming vaccination service, then there will also be primary care network practice-based clinics.

“We have gone out to the whole of the (healthcare) system to try to recruit volunteers and individuals who will be able to work in those hubs, and be able to support the delivery of the vaccine.

“One of those volunteers is actually sat on this call and that’s your director of public health (Allison Challenger) who has put her name forward to support the delivery of the vaccine.

“We are moving forward at pace. We are aiming to have everything in place by Tuesday, December 1, as per the national steer, and we would aim to go live, we believe, by Wednesday, December 9 should a vaccine be available, and the whole system is poised to move this forward.”

Sarah Carter was speaking at a virtual meeting of the Nottingham Outbreak Control Engagement Board on Tuesday, November 24.​​​​​​​

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