The new Chichester Vaccine Centre is up and running and in full swing. Last Friday I visited the site, based at the Westgate Centre, to see how it was going and to thank the fantastic team of volunteers and NHS staff who are now inoculating 1,000 people a day. The centre has already been hugely successful and is fully booked for several days in advance, they are currently working through the clinically vulnerable and 65 plus cohorts, and those over 60 are now being invited to book a vaccine slot. The team are administering the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine, which is fortunately easier to handle and the whole process is done in around 15 minutes. Anyone who has booked a slot, the team has asked people don’t arrive early for their appointments.
We have the new centre thanks to the brilliant leadership of Siobhan Melia, Chief Executive of Sussex Community Foundation Trust, who I have spent many weeks working alongside to get a site allocated and established in Chichester. There is a huge amount of preparation and planning that goes into such an endeavour, and I want to thank the commissioners for listening to the community and for their tireless efforts to fulfil our need. I’m also very grateful to Eileen Lintill and Chichester District Council for offering the site to the NHS and Everyone Active who have been working on the ground to make the hub a success.
To establish any site it is critical to find highly trained staff to physically vaccinate people. I was super impressed to see several British Airways and EasyJet cabin crew on hand as they have advanced emergency medical training, and of course, a swathe of retired doctors and nurses, all supplementing the NHS staff to get the job done.
The centre is going from strength to strength under the watchful eye of Fiona, Duane, and Michelle who have created an expertly efficient system. Fiona, the centre’s Clinical Lead, is going further and supporting volunteers to retrain in healthcare through apprenticeships for all ages and T-level work placements for young people. Adults who need to retrain as they’ve lost their job, or have a newfound passion to practise medicine, can use these routes to build on their experience and move into a rewarding career. For many of the aircrew volunteering, it’s brought new opportunity as well as playing a vital role in our national effort to beat Covid. Fiona and her team are showing great leadership and their legacy will be to deliver a pipeline of skilled healthcare professionals for the local area for years to come.
For those of you worried you’ll miss out when gyms can reopen, you won't. Stuart from Everyone Active assured me he’s working to reopen the gym on April 12th, along with the swimming pools for solo-swimmers and households, and children's activities classes. More steps on their phased reopening have been laid out and are on the Everyone Active website.
All I can say is thank you so much to everyone involved in getting the site up and running, and I look forward to seeing you again in a few months when I’m invited to get my vaccine.