Salisbury Cathedral welcoming back some familiar faces for Covid vaccine
The centre first opened over two months ago
Salisbury Cathedral has opened as a vaccine centre once again today (Saturday 27th March) and for the first time the staff there will be seeing some familiar faces.
Some members of the over 80 community and health care workers who received a jab back in January have been invited in for their second dose.
Anyone who got their first on January 16th, when the centre first opened, will get their final one at the same time as before.
They will also be hitting a milestone today.
During the day they will administer their 25,000th vaccine since opening.
Marie Narang, Operations Manager for the vaccination clinic, told Greatest Hits Radio:
"The centre has worked really really well, so we have done over 20 sessions at the Cathedral and we started off slowly but surely with approximately a thousand plus patients coming through to highs of 1500 patients one day so we've found as we work through the cohorts the patients have moved through faster and our vaccinators and the whole team has become much more slick and organised and we've been able to maximise the use there so the Cathedral has been a fantastic venue in terms of the space we have had and we've used the cloisters for queuing which the patients are happy to do.
Initially we thought we would have to do two clinics, one clinic and then the second 12 weeks later, but how times have changed. Today we are expecting all of our over 80s and frontline heath and social care workers to be returning, we have booked in just over 1,000 of them and we will have our 25,000th patient vaccinated during the morning which is really a milestone to achieve again.
It's great to have them coming back through, I think the first time as they were coming through you got to be part of their journey so as we were working through the queues and listening to people who have been brought in by their carers, their relatives their children there were tears of emotion there were tears of joy it really feels like we are coming up to that second phase where actually we're finishing what we started and after these people have been vaccinated and after a small period of time will have the maximum immunity that they can have so I think that's something to be really really proud of."
Anyone with any queries about their jab at the Cathedral should contact wccg.sarumcathedral@nhs.net.