Health bosses in Ipswich are offering to drive you to get your COVID jab if needed
It's part of plans to encourage more people to get vaccinated
Leafleting and door-knocking encouraging people to take up the Covid-19 vaccine will begin in the lowest take-up areas of Ipswich this weekend – and health chiefs have said they will even drive people to get a jab if needed.
Suffolk’s designation as an Enhanced Response Area which garners national support means rapid surge response teams will be joining local efforts to target areas of Ipswich where vaccine take-up is the lowest.
That will begin from November 20 around Barrack Corner and Burlington Road the following day, and feature teams leafleting more than 6,000 homes on Thursday and Friday, before door-to-door engagement the Saturday and Sunday.
The vaccination bus and pop-up vaccination clinics will be set up in those areas encouraging people to take up their first or second jab and have conversations to address any concerns.
Public Health Suffolk director Stuart Keeble told Thursday’s Health and Wellbeing Board that teams would even drive people to the centres if needed.
“We know in some parts of Suffolk the vaccination rates aren’t as high, and Ipswich is an example of that. In some areas the uptake is only about 50-60%,” he said.
“We recognise in Ipswich we do have those low vaccine uptake areas and we have done bits, but we are going to do some really high focused work in some very small areas over the next four or five weekends to bring the vaccination bus and pop-ups, do leafleting, go and walk those communities, invite people in and if need be to drive them to the site to help them to do that.
“It’s just to make it as simple as possible. For some people their lives are really busy and actually don’t live and breathe what we read all the time, they try and get on with their lives. If we can make it as simple as possible then I think it is worth us giving that effort.”
Ipswich had the highest rates of the virus in England in mid-October, peaking at 854.5 cases per 100,000.
That is now at 410.4, 46th out of 350 local authority areas.
The first weekend will take place on November 20 and 21 in the Westgate ward, followed over the next three weekends by Gipping and Chantry, Maidenhall and Stoke.
The rapid surge response teams will be joining local community figures on the ground in those areas, such as councillors and faith leaders, whose local knowledge is seen as invaluable in driving uptake.
The month of work in Ipswich is being used as a test bed, with plans for lower take-up areas of Lowestoft in December if that proves successful.