Vaccine Update in Surrey - 12th January 2021
Vaccine update from Surrey Heartlands:
We are continuing to roll-out our Covid-19 vaccination programme; by the end of this coming week we will have full coverage across Surrey Heartlands, with all our planned centres up and running. From Monday 11th January, this will also include Epsom Racecourse as a larger vaccination site enabling significantly more people to be vaccinated. This will start with a combination of health and care workers and local residents.
As per national guidance, we are currently vaccinating those in the top two priority cohorts; those who are over 80 years of age, care home residents and staff and frontline health and care workers. As our local services go live, staff are working hard to vaccinate as many people as quickly as they can, and many more people will be invited over the next few weeks.
Eligible patients - currently those over 80 years of age - are being contacted to come forward for their vaccination in a variety of ways. With the larger vaccination sites going live across the country from tomorrow, those over 80 years living within 45 minutes of these sites (and who haven't already been vaccinated elsewhere) are receiving an invitation to book an appointment. Those over 80s who live further away and who haven't been contacted yet will be invited soon; they won't be missed out. We will then expand the programme to further cohorts, starting with the over 75s.
We are asking people to please help the local NHS by not calling us; we will contact you when it's your turn.
Vaccination services have been provided in a variety of local venues including; Chertsey Halls, the Westway in Caterham, St Christopher's Church in Haslemere, the Hythe Centre near Staines, Victoria Gate in central Woking, Woodhatch in Reigate, Emberbrook Surgery in Thames Ditton, Epsom Racecourse and Medwyns Surgery in Dorking. Last week services started at the Holmhurst Surgery in Redhill, at Tandridge District Council Offices in Oxted, and Centenary Hall in Horley. More will go live this coming week.
We have also been vaccinating at the Royal Surrey County Hospital in Guildford, and from last week at Surrey and Sussex Hospitals in Redhill; the programme will shortly be expanded to cover all frontline health and care organisations across the county.Once all our sites are up and running and as more vaccine becomes available, we will move - where possible - to providing the service 12 hours/day, 7 days/week.
We are now vaccinating staff and residents in local care homes, starting with those with over 50 residents. Now we have the new Oxford Astra-Zeneca vaccine which is easier to transport, we will roll the service out to all care homes over the next few weeks.
The new guidance from the JCVI on the period between doses also means that we will be able to get the maximum benefit for the most people in the shortest possible time which will help save lives. Patients who have already received their first dose are being contacted to rebook their second appointment at a later date, as per this latest guidance. Again, if people haven't heard anything yet, we will be contacting you soon.
Finally, we would ask you to help us by continuing to remind people:
Not to contact the NHS to seek a vaccine, we will contact you (if you haven't heard yet, we haven't forgotten you);
When we do contact you, please attend your booked appointments;
And really importantly, please continue to follow all the guidance to control the virus and save lives.
