NHS in Lincolnshire launches autumn booster programme
It joins the rest of the country in offering the jab to those aged 50 and over
The NHS is set to start its autumn booster programme from today with the rollout of another booster to defend against Covid-19.It comes as the Covid-19 alert level in the UK was recently downgraded amid falling cases, but chief medical officers say further surges are still 'likely'.
Ultimately the jab is available to everyone aged 50 and over, the first of the autumn covid booster will start on the 5th of September when care home residents and housebound patients will begin to be given the booster vaccination, before progressing the following week to begin vaccinating people aged 75 and over.
Leader of Boston's Mass Vaccination Centre, Karen Hewinson, recalls what the first campaign was like:
" The main thing for me, having been a nurse for several years, is how covid has actually brought the nursing and allied workforce together. I've not seen in my experience of nursing, how all of these different sectors have worked together, and that is something that has really resonated with me. It's something that hopefully going forward still keeps happening because ultimately it is for the patient that we are here, and working together has just proved so good.
"I think another thing that has stayed with me is some of the comments that we're getting from, initially way back when we started the programme. When the elderly people started coming in and some of them hadn't been out of their house for over a year and they all came in, dressed in their Sunday best, and it was a real social occasion and it just felt as though we were getting back to some form of normality. It's taken nearly two years but we're making progress."
As with previous rounds of the covid vaccination, the NHS in Lincolnshire will have vaccination sites around the county, the majority of which will be run by GP practices and community pharmacies.
In addition to these local sites, the NHS will once again be running two Mass Vaccination Centres from early September, with the existing site at PRSA, Boston, and a new site at The Weighing Rooms, Carholme Road, Lincoln.
The autumn booster campaign is scheduled to run until early December, by which time everyone aged 50 and over, as well as a number of other cohorts including pregnant women, carers, household contacts of immunosuppressed people, those at increased risk of covid-19, and health and social care staff will have been offered an autumn booster.