St John Ambulance "humbled" to be involved in coronavirus vaccine roll out
SJA's site lead at the Ashton Gate centre in Bristol, says they're "delighted" to be playing their part
We've been learning about the role of volunteers in the coronavirus vaccine roll out.
St John Ambulance are recruiting 30-thousand people to help administer jabs across the country.
Ollie Crandon, who is the charity's site lead at the mass vaccination centre at Ashton Gate in Bristol, says it is "humbling" to be involved.
"Most people know St John for what we do at events and within the community across the country," he told us.
"We want to get back to normal as much as everybody else, and that's one of the things that this will help.
"We're obviously delighted to play our part as the nation's health reserve in making sure that we're able to get the country vaccinated as quickly as possible and as locally for people as possible."
How are things going in the vaccine roll out?
"Yeah it is going really well," Ollie says.
"We've had a really positive start from all the teams involved and all the citizens coming forward for their vaccines.
"Our teams are on site (at Ashton Gate) seven days a week, all the time the centre is open and we will be there for the foreseeable future.
"But it is going really well so far."
How is St John Ambulance helping?
"We have three vaccination volunteer roles that we provide," Ollie explains.
"So there's an advocacy role where we greet citizens as they're coming in once they've checked in at the site.
"From there we will work with them, we might identify if there are any mobility needs or any way we can help them while they're queuing...and then we also have our post vaccination care volunteers who will monitor people if they're choosing to wait at the end.
"And then we have our vaccinators themselves.
"We're not currently vaccinating at Ashton Gate but we are at many other sites across the country and that is something we're able to do when the demand requires it."
How many volunteers are working at Ashton Gate?
Currently there are eight volunteers at Ashton Gate each day, but the site is not yet operating at full capacity.
"Ready for when the mass vaccination programme is at full capacity, we estimate we will be needing to deploy around 30,000 volunteers across the sites across the country.
"We've been busy recruiting tens of thousands of volunteers at the moment and we have well over 36,000 who have signed up.
"We're working hard at the moment to get those trained...so that they're ready to deploy and that will continue as we continue to open more centres around the country.
How else is St John Ambulance helping during the pandemic?
Volunteers for SJA are actively helping out at hospitals across the country as well as in vaccine centres.
They've also been helping provide ambulance cover.
"Almost before the pandemic came to a head we've been involved working with the NHS with our ambulance provision," Ollie tells us.
"Which we've really ramped up during the pandemic to provide ambulance support across the country.
"And we've also been really developing our hospital volunteering offer.
"We have volunteers supporting emergency departments and other departments within hospitals across the country and that's been going on for many months now as well. throughout the pandemic.
If you want to volunteer to help in any way, you can sign up here