Chesterfield Walton Hospital to become a new Covid vaccination hub

They would join 16 community sites which are already administering the vaccines, including Derby Arena, and alongside Royal Derby and Chesterfield Royal hospitals.

It represents an aim to further step up the vaccine rollout and hopes to hit the mid-February deadline for giving jabs to all those in the top four priority groups, of which there are nearly a quarter of a million people in Derbyshire.

These groups are: Care home residents and staff; Frontline health and social care workers and residents aged 80 and over; Residents aged 75 and over; Residents aged 70 and over: All those between 16 to 69 who are extremely clinically vulnerable.

Will Jones, chief operating officer at Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, who is leading the vaccine rollout, said Walton would join Kingsway Hospital in Derby and community pharmacies in Hatton, Horsley and Derby in starting administering jabs.

Mr Jones said local authorities were now looking to vaccinate patients who are housebound and cannot access any of the community hubs or hospitals.

He said he was ‘absolutely confident’ that vaccine supplies would improve and that Derbyshire’s allocation would continue to increase, acknowledging that there had been recent issues.

Joined-Up Care Derbyshire (JUCD), a combination of health authorities in the county and city, said the two proposed hospital hubs would focus on frontline health and social care workers in the first instance and they would not initially be offering appointments to the public. It could not yet confirm a start date for these hubs.

A JUCD spokesperson said: “We are excited at the success of the rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination across Derby and Derbyshire, and expect that this will be continued with the possibility of opening of two more hospital hub sites in the next few weeks.

“We hope to be able to announce the location of these sites, in Chesterfield and Derby, as soon as they have completed final checks and are ready to begin vaccinations.

“Both sites will focus on vaccinating frontline health and social care workers, and the sites will not initially offer vaccination appointments for the public.

“These new hubs will also support other parts of the JUCD system, where teams are all working so hard to deliver the vaccine.

A spokesperson for Derbyshire Community Health Services NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Walton Hospital, said: “We have expressed an interest in running a hospital hub for the Covid-19 vaccination programme at one of our sites and subject to all the right approvals at national level for establishing a hub.

“Subject to that approval, such a hospital hub would predominantly focus on vaccinations for frontline health and social care staff, at least initially. But it could also give us scope to work in liaison with the local primary care networks (groups of GP surgeries), and the hospital hubs already in place at Chesterfield Royal Hospital the University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, to support in the vaccination of people identified in the most-at-risk groups at some point ahead.”