Throughout the pandemic our team have worked tirelessly alongside our incredible NHS partner Trusts to help deliver the COVID-19 vaccination across London in the form of our Vaccination Staff Banks. We are delighted to announce that this work has resulted in us being shortlisted for the Staffing Solution of the Year Award, at the HSJ Awards 2022.
This project saw us working in partnership with North London Partners in Health and Care STP (led by UCLH), North East London Health and Care Partnership STP, (Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust (BHRUH), Barts Health Trust, East London NHS Foundation Trust (ELFT), North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) and Homerton University Hospital Foundation Trust) Kingston Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Epsom and St Helier NHS Trust.
Using the knowledge of our Bank Partners healthcare sector experts we were able to create bespoke Staff Bank solution to support our partners. Read on to find out more about the “Coming together to combat COVID-19: Vaccination staff banks” project.
The Project
To help deliver the COVID-19 Vaccination Programme across London in collaboration with our NHS Partners.
The Challenges
To deliver a brand-new service based on our healthcare sector expertise and working alongside NHS partners that were already extremely busy and facing unprecedented pressure. In addition to this we were delivering this service during a pandemic and facing self-isolation, sickness and a shortage of healthcare workers to support the programme.
The Solution
Key to providing this service was using the structure already in place in our NHS Staff Banks and developing it into something we could use to deliver the Vaccination Programme. Our teams worked closely with our NHS partners as they delivered training to hundreds of workers so that they could learn to administer the COVID-19 vaccine, even if they didn’t have any prior healthcare experience. In doing so we were able to help them develop the workforce they needed and deliver the required service.
The Results
Since the beginning of the project in late 2020 our team have helped to vaccinate over 3 million people across London and in turn saved an estimated 28,000 lives.
Our first vaccination bank was operational and screening applicants within three weeks of being formally engaged by our partners and to date we have screened over 38,000 applications for this project. Additionally, we supported our clients by recruiting 45 staff members across our partner NHS Trusts and PCNs to support their own internal teams.
Our dedicated, flexible workforce are now supplying vaccines at over 80 sites across North Central London, East London, North East London and Surrey, including:
- 13 mass vaccination sites
- 7 hospital hubs
- 6 pop up locations
- 4 vaccination mobile units
- Roaming find-and-treat units
- Over 50 Community Centres, pharmacies and PCNs
- Festivals, ‘Super Saturday’ events and walk-ins
We also provided staff for the NHS Covid-19 vaccination centre, Newham – based at ExCeL London. One of the original large-scale vaccination centres, where over 130,000 doses of Covid-19 vaccine were delivered in just six months.
Over the course of this project we have successfully trained almost 2000 people to deliver the vaccine and currently have a workforce including both vaccinators and administration staff.
If you’d like to find out more about the experience of our vaccinators and how the programme not only changed the lives of the people who received the vaccine but also those giving it check out the links below:
How becoming a staff bank vaccinator changed my life
Interview with a staff bank vaccinator
To see the full HSJ Partnership Awards 2022 shortlist click here.