Celebrating our Covid-19 vaccine hub staff at St Bartholomew’s Hospital
The vaccination hub team at St Bartholomew’s Hospital have been responsible for a safe and effective service for local residents in the City of London, NHS staff and some of the most vulnerable cancer and cardiac patients receiving treatment at the hospital.
Over nine weeks St Bartholomew’s Hospital administered approximately 10,000 vaccines to the local community, trust staff, wider health and social care colleagues and patients.
With the help of medical advisors, the hospital hub also gained a reputation for delivering a bespoke service for higher risk colleagues and pregnant staff.
As there were often over 40 bookings an hour, the clinic also introduced new methods of administering vaccines safely and efficiently, which included designing a number system to call people through to the hub.
Samantha Philpott-Jones, Associate Director of Nursing at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, said: “I have great admiration for the resilience of all the members of staff involved in our vaccination hub.
“There has been excellent feedback from patients and additional benefits such as working collaboratively with people who we would never usually meet.
“This helped us come together as a Barts Health team to do what we do best: providing compassionate care for our patients and colleagues.
“I would like to thank the teams involved, including our pharmacy staff; admin and clerical staff; cardiac physiologists; front of house and screening teams; our medical and nursing teams; volunteers and our site management and senior leadership colleagues.
“We all should be very proud for the role we played in the NHS vaccination programme."
We also caught up with Alison Cox, a senior cardiographer at St Bartholomew’s Hospital who was redeployed to help lead the vaccine hub at the hospital.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you were doing before you were redeployed?
Before the Covid-19 pandemic I normally worked in cardiac diagnostics clinic three, a very busy outpatient department at St Bartholomew’s.
Throughout the pandemic I have been redeployed a couple of times. During the first wave I was redeployed to the pop-up shop on the fourth floor, which many at the hospital will be familiar with.
I worked with my colleagues Arnaz, Glenn and Abdul, who many of you will know, serving on average 600 meals a day, which had been donated by local caterers and restaurateurs to staff members, as well as donations from various suppliers ranging from clothing, toiletries and food.
Describe what your vaccine hub role looks like?
I was asked to join the vaccine hub at St Bartholomew’s in January along with some of my cardiac physiology colleagues. I was in a front of house role, which involved meeting and greeting, handing out consent forms, directing colleagues, patients, and local residents to reception and keeping an eye on social distancing and helping with queries.
What was your favourite thing about your job in the vaccine hub?
It was lovely to meet so many staff members that I wouldn’t usually come into contact with during our working day, especially in the clinic five rest area, which was taken over by our magnificent ITU staff. Their faces would always light up when we delivered goodies.
The vaccine hub team spirit was fantastic. They all were all super organised and so many people came together from reception staff, vaccinators, nursing staff, senior management and pharmacy. What a team!
I remember one particular day in January we worked until well after 7pm and we vaccinated over 450 people that day. This is one of my favourite memories and such a fantastic achievement from everyone at the vaccine hub. I went home shattered!
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