Published in the Bury Times on 7th January
Well done to Bury Council and our local Clinical Commissioning Group! Following on from regulatory approval of the Pfizer and Astra Zeneca vaccines, our local health leaders and clinicians must be congratulated for the work they’re doing to roll out the vaccine to our community.
Vaccinations began on December 15th through the 3 vaccination centres in Prestwich, Radcliffe and the Elizabethan Suite who, at the time of writing, have carried out approximately 3,000 vaccinations. These doses have been given predominantly to the over 80s and we have approximately 9,000 within that age group living in the Borough. I’m informed that a further 2,000 vaccinations will take place by the end of the upcoming weekend.
Further centres will be at Ramsbottom from the 11th of this month and Fairfield from the 18th. The Etihad campus will also be able to provide extra provision for those in the south of the Borough.
I have regular meetings with the Chief Officer at Fairfield Hospital who confirmed that our heroic local front line NHS staff are receiving vaccinations at both Rochdale and Salford Hospitals and this process will clearly continue at pace, especially when Fairfield begins vaccinating on the 18th. Further vaccinations have begun within care home settings and a plan is in place to drive this programme forward at the optimal pace.
I’m informed that we are expecting a minimum of a further 3,000 Pfizer vaccines by mid-January and we need the Astra Zeneca product at the earliest opportunity.
So, as you can see staff in Bury are working tirelessly to implement the vaccine at scale and in line with government targets and I’m confident that as long as we have adequate vaccine supply, the local infrastructure will deliver a process that will protect those most vulnerable to serious health outcomes from Covid-19 at the earliest opportunity.
However, this is a national programme and I know that some areas of the country have not yet vaccinated any of their residents. The government must ensure that everyone in the top four priority groups are vaccinated by mid-February and restrictions begin to be relaxed at that point. We cannot be held up by issues such as the ridiculous bureaucracy retired practitioners have to plough through to return to the front-line and we must make use of every resource open to us in this national endeavour such as national pharmacy chains who are ideally placed to be vaccination hubs.
These will be difficult weeks, but health leaders, clinicians and others in Bury are playing their part by delivering for local residents and ensuring we are to return to normality at the earliest opportunity.
I am advised that our local hospital is expected to face unprecedented demand over the next weeks. Covid-19 admissions are likely to increase, and the NHS must deal with these pressures whilst having a depleted workforce due to staff requiring to isolate and other issues. Our medical, social care and front-line staff are doing an incredible job and they have our everlasting thanks.