Nationally our vaccine programme continues to progress extremely well with over 9.6 million people having received a vaccine by yesterday evening. Every single older residents care home has been visited to offer vaccinations to residents and staff. By international comparisons our programme is performing exceptionally well.
Locally the vaccine programme has been making excellent progress too. As of the end of January 116,000 vaccinations had been given across the county, all care residents were offered a vaccination by 24th January and over 90% of all over 80’s and 50% of over 70’s by the 31st January.
I was at The Meres Leisure Centre this weekend giving injections myself and it was wonderful to hear the positivity from people visiting to receive their dose. For those with a fear of needles, I'm happy to report that the most common comment I heard after they received their injection from me was, "I didn't feel a thing"!
I pay great tribute to those who have organised the programme locally for their hard work and the speed at which they’ve set the vaccination system up from scratch and the many volunteers for giving up their time to help support this mammoth initiative.
I have received a number of questions regarding the programme and I hope to answer many of them below:
Which vaccine could I receive?
Currently the vaccines being given locally are the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine.
Where are the vaccine sites? What if I can’t travel?
In order to ensure the fastest possible roll out the vaccination programme has a number of layers to it.
Large Vaccination Centres: (Lincoln Showground, Princess Royal Sports Centre Boston)
These are, as the name suggests, large scale regional centres with capacity to vaccinate huge numbers of people. Individuals will receive a letter asking them to go online and book an appointment. For those able to travel to these centres this offers a great opportunity to be vaccinated and greatly assists the government in delivering the exceptionally high numbers of vaccines it is at present (almost 1 million doses were given this weekend alone). If you’re not able to travel to the Large Centre please don’t worry, just ignore the letter and you will be called more locally soon.
Local Vaccination Centres: (Grantham Mere’s Leisure Centre, Waddington, Ruston Sports Centre)
These are organised and delivered by the local health team in Lincolnshire. They are not as large but still offer significant scale of delivery in a more local setting. Your GP surgery will call you by phone or text when it is your turn to receive the vaccine with a link to make an appointment. Volunteer drivers and Call connect can be arranged for those who need it.
Local Surgeries
In response to concerns from some residents who have difficulties traveling from the Sleaford area the local health teams have arranged vaccination clinics in Ruskington, Sleaford and Heckington. Again, your surgery will contact you to offer these appointments.
Housebound Residents
A few residents are housebound so unable to attend any vaccination centre. These patients will be visited at home to receive the vaccine. Since the GPs are very familiar with these patients each surgery is arranging this for their own patients.
Hospital Centres. (Lincoln and Pilgrim)
These are mostly providing vaccines to health and care staff.
I hope this information is useful. Please contact me at [email protected] if you have further questions.
