Back to Practice with Covid-19

A couple of 8 hour shifts this week before a period of nine days off. Mostly unremarkable shifts with a mix of vaccine delivery, supervision of new starts and occasional oversight of reconstitution cabin. However we also had a rather mighty wind… The second of my shifts was on windy Tuesday. It was fine enough when I arrived in the late morning but the wind speeds quickly picked up and did cause some anxiety as well as some problems. I was informed that the structures were designed to withstand wind speeds of 60mph. However the forecast was for a wind speed of 55mph with gusts considerably higher. Various parts of our secure marquees began to work loose and teams of staff from the marquee providers soon arrived to tie, repair and lash things down as much a possible. One avenue was out of action for most of the shift because of loose dangling light fittings. The main issue for vaccinators were the doors to the cabins which could be rather hard to hold onto in gusts and the risk of va...

  Second week completed with one early shift and my first ever 12 hour shift. In the whole of the 12 hour shift I only got through two vials as a vaccinator! The first third of my shift was spent supervising a new colleague with her first shift. The middle four hours was spent in the reconstitution cabin, a necessary but somewhat dull roll ruling over the cold chain with 31 vials reconstituted! And then for the final four hours I was the runner for rest of evening. This role is basically the link between the reconstitution cabin, the vaccinators and the car management team. It’s important that we don’t take out too many vials especially as the day draws to a close in order to minimise any possible vaccine wastage. So the task is to liaise with everybody about the number of cars waiting (and the number of people in them due for a vaccine), the number of vaccine doses that each vacci na tor has left, and to ensure that these match up by the close of the day. M y separate early ...

I have now completed my first 16hr week of Vaccinator shifts at the QMU Drive-Through centre and it has been interesting, informative and fun. My first 4hr shift on Friday evening paired me with an experienced vaccinator (ie someone who had started the previous day!). My new colleague, a retired GP, was very good company and a good practitioner of SODOTO (See One, Do One, Teach One). I was very quickly vaccinating alongside my colleague and duly signed off as competent. The main additional skill besides vaccine administration is learning the dark art of preparing the highly delicate Pfizer vaccine and maintaining the cold chain system while taking care with expiry timings of each vial so that not a drop of this precious stuff is wasted. The following day, over an 8hour shift, I was paired with with a new vaccinator colleague, a physiotherapist, and used the same SOTODO technique to help him to get up to speed as a competent practitioner in his ow...

It took a number of emails over the course of last week to finally get access today to the NHS Lothian QMU Vaccinator e-Roster and find myself with shifts allocated over this coming weekend. I am due to work various shifts totalling 16 hours over this weekend. I also have shifts allocated for the rest of February. So it’s gathering pace. Vaccinations will soon be taking place at four large centres across Lothian as well as a number of smaller local clinics here and there. As mentioned before the QMU site is a drive-through location so I am intrigued as to how that will all be set up and organised. My guess is it will be the coldest and windiest vaccination centre in Lothian. So long as we can wrap up reasonably it should be fine. I’m looking forward to my first series of shifts and will let readers know a little more about it after my first set of shifts are completed.

  Spent an hour or two in a series of queues to get my first Covid vaccine, sign a range of induction checklists, get a new NHS ID badge, and pick up a bunch lateral flow test kits for personal home use. The session was generally well organised on the day even if the advance support information was only received on the bus home rather than prior to the induction. It would have helped to have got this prior to attending as I would less often have had to say, “no I’ve not got, or done, or seen that”. Despite this I was still able to blag my way past the various hurdles when I did not have the right information, or paperwork, that staff were after but promised I would have had, if I had been known   in advance! Everybody was very positive and helpful and very hard to recognise behind their facemasks. I did however chat to a couple of former colleagues briefly. Next up will be to organise some NHS Lothian login details to access some additional...

After rather a long hiatus the blog is back. Just before Christmas I received an email from NHS Lothian asking if I would be willing and available to support the Covid-19 mass vaccination programme over the first half of 2021. I answered in the positive. Ten days ago I was asked for details of the hours and locations I would be willing/able to work. Yesterday I was offered a short-term, part-time contract at the vaccination centre being set up at Queen Margaret University Campus in Musselburgh with a start date of week of the 8 th  Feb. All that’s needed now is some basic induction details followed by some online education and learning about current vaccination theory practice and hopefully I can begin to contribute to the vaccination effort. A separate email directed me towards the required online learning resources. Hopefully I will only be required to complete those that are directly relevant to vaccination theory and practice. If I have to look at a ...

Stopping and starting and stopping again. This has been quite a long, roller-coaster of a journey. For a range of reasons I have decided not to stay on at the Covid-19 Testing Centre. The main reason is that there are too many coordinators in the Covid-19 Test Team. Two new coordinator staff started this week. There may also be more on the way. These new staff are, as indeed most of the rest of the staff in the team, re-deployed from elsewhere in NHS Lothian. I was the only one there from entirely outwith the service. There seemed to be an excess of coordinators and not enough staff or activity for everyone to coordinate. Nor is there presently a need for more testers as all of the available shifts for testing seem to be well covered and the contact tracing aspect is also up and ready to run elsewhere in NHS Lothian. I have no wish undertake a role which seems largely supernumerary and it is far easier for me to withdraw than those seconded from elsewhere. I am happy to leave ...