Chesterfield hotel one of three new Derbyshire covid vaccine sites

The hotel, St John’s Methodist Church in Allestree and Pinxton Village Hall. are the first faith sites or a hotels in the county to open up for Covid vaccination centres run by pharmacy-led teams.

The new sites bring the total number of vaccination venues within the Derby and Derbyshire CCG area to 23, including six pharmacy-led sites, 15 GP-led sites, two hospital hubs – which includes Chesterfield Royal – and the vaccination centre at Derby Arena.

The Casa Hotel is using two connected function rooms and making good use of the hotel’s ample parking and excellent access.

The site is run by Peak Pharmacy, but head of business transformation Darryl Dethick explained that his team has had lots of help preparing for the start of vaccinations.

He said: “We’ve been working hard getting the hotel ready to receive patients, and the hotel staff have been great.

“Some of the hotel staff will even be helping us with admin – this is a big team effort.

“We will have three vaccination pods and have had really good response from people making bookings.

"We’ll be vaccinating every day from Thursday through to Sunday to begin with.”

Further south, in Allestree, St John’s Methodist Church will become the first faith site in Derbyshire to administer the Covid-19 vaccine.

Nicky Patel, owner and superintendent pharmacist at Pinxton Pharmacy, said getting set up in the village hall was great for the community.

He said: “So many people have pitched in to make this a reality, including the pharmacy team, the local parish council and a lot of volunteers.

"Pinxton Village Hall is an ideal venue, and we’re looking forward to getting started.”

“We have five vaccination pods set up and ready to go, and we are doing dummy runs of the process to make sure everything runs smoothly.

Each of the three new sites is led by a local pharmacy team but does not carry out vaccinations in the pharmacy itself.

All vaccinations at these new sites require an appointment through the national booking system.