On December 8 2020 as the festive season was beginning, the world was preparing for more than just Christmas.
After the toughest year on record for the NHS, 10 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital was one of the first places in the world to receive and administer the first COVID-19 vaccination.
Fast forward 12 months and progress of North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust in delivering the vaccine has grown further and faster than anyone could expect.
The trust has supported primary care with the management and storage of the vaccine to the population of north Cumbria, offered two vaccinations and booster vaccinations to its entire workforce, and offered the vaccine to over 10,000 children across Cumbria.
The latest figures published by NHS England on December 2 show that in north Cumbria the NHS as a whole has delivered almost 600,000 vaccines.
In December 2020, the trust set out working on how to deliver the life- saving vaccine initially from the West Cumberland Hospital site.
Specific arrangements were put in place to safely store and deliver the vaccine.
It needed to be ready to deliver the vaccine to the first cohort by December 8 – the over 80s, care home workers, front line health and care professionals and those from the most high risk groups.
The first delivery of vaccines received were the Pifzer jab, although administered by a simple injection there was a complex and difficult logistical challenge to deliver the Pfizer to patients. At that time the vaccines had to be stored at -75C before being thawed out and could only be moved four times within that cold chain before being used.
Paul Fieldhouse, clinical director of pharmacy, said: “We pulled out all the stops to make sure that Cumbria was in the first roll out.
“A dedicated team consisting of pharmacy colleagues, estates, nursing leads, occupational health, HR, IT, infection prevention, health and safety and finance worked round the clock to make sure that Cumbria was given the priority it needed to fight this virus.”
In the historic moment the first vaccine was delivered to Agnes Hardy, who at the time was 80 years old.
Agnes described her joy at being able to have her vaccine saying: “I’m honoured to be the first patient to have the vaccine. I wanted to have it so I am a step closer to seeing my family again.”
One of the first care home staff to get the vaccine was Caroline Kennedy who works at the Gables Care Home in Whitehaven.
She said: “I’m so excited that the vaccine is coming here first, mainly for our service users, they’re so down at the minute not seeing their families. This will hopefully be the start of us getting back to some form of normality for them.”
The first vaccine for trust staff was given by Dawn Mahone, senior occupational health advisor at West Cumberland Hospital.
She said: “I felt very special and very privileged to give the first jab at West Cumberland Hospital contributing to the health and safety of my NHS colleagues. I was nervous and excited. I’d had a lot of messages of support from friends and family and I just wanted to get going. I’m humbled by everyone’s efforts. There is light at the end of the tunnel now. We must all remain cautious but this is going to be a game changer.”
Since that day, it has supported the safe delivery of first and second vaccines to NHS staff, our health and care partners and we supported the Primary Care Networks in Copeland to deliver their first and second vaccines to patients.
In total the trust administered nearly 40,000 vaccines in the initial vaccination programme.
More recently thousands of booster vaccinations have now also been delivered to trust staff.
Ed Tallis, director of primary care at NHS North Cumbria Clinical Commissioning Group, said: “The vaccination programme in north Cumbria has been a huge success despite being a complex logistical challenge and a massive undertaking.
“This is all thanks to the teams involved who have gone above and beyond and have been supported by our community and the brilliant volunteers who came forward and played a vital role in keeping the programme moving as quickly as it did.
“The work from the hospital hub was vital to ensure health and care workers were vaccinated and throughout the programme the team from NCIC have supported our primary care and pharmacy teams and have led the work in schools.
“As we mark this milestone we would like to thank the communities in north Cumbria for their patience and understanding throughout these incredibly difficult and challenging times. We appreciate that this has been a very fast changing situation and all patience that has been shown, waiting for your appointments, has been greatly appreciated by staff.”
The trust was also given the mammoth task of vaccinating all eligible school children across Cumbria. Almost 10,000 children were offered the COVID vaccine, the programme was delivered in six weeks, in 44 schools across Cumbria. It was a huge undertaking.
Lyn Durrant, assistant director of nursing children and young people, said: “To deliver a new vaccination programme which would normally be months in the planning but this programme was started within three weeks of being asked to deliver it.
“The collaboration between groups of staff, going way over and above their normal day job was exemplary. Public health nurses were redeployed to support the screening of literally thousands of consents form and attend the schools to provide further paediatric expertise. “
As we reflect upon what has been another difficult year we are extremely grateful for the efforts of our staff to deliver the vaccination programme.
Jill Forster, chief nurse at NCIC said: “I’m extremely proud of the success of the vaccination programme by our own teams here at NCIC as well as our partners.
“This time last year we were hopeful that the vaccine would be our lifeline out of the pandemic, now we know this to be true.
“This year we have a similar number of infections within our community as last year, however unlike last year we are not seeing these turn into a large number of hospital admissions.
“This is down to the amount of people we have vaccinated and I am proud of the part we have played in delivering these vaccines to our staff and our communities. We don’t know what the future holds but we do know the vaccines are our way out of these dark days.”
It’s not too late for anyone to have their vaccines – you can find more information online. For those who are waiting for the booster the NHS will contact you to book an appointment there is no need to call.
