‘We do flu jabs so we can do this, and we are ready’ - Lancashire's pharmacies stand ready to join the fight against Covid

Kath Gulson, chief executive officer at Community Pharmacy Lancashire, which represents around 360 community pharmacies across the region, said the county’s army of pharmacists are on stand-by, waiting for the Government to get in touch with an action plan.
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She said: “Whether they’re bigger chains or smaller chains, they are all pharmacists and local people serving local people, and they really want to get involved in getting jabs into people’s arms. There’s a will there.

“What we have said to the Government for a while is, ‘We do flu jabs so we can do this, and we are ready’.”

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Kath said there are logistically issues, such as how to deliver the jabs to branches, to “iron out” at a national level, but said pharmacists now simply await an action plan from the Government.

Lancashire's pharmacies stand ready to join the fight against CovidLancashire's pharmacies stand ready to join the fight against Covid
Lancashire's pharmacies stand ready to join the fight against Covid

People are calling pharmacies and asking when they can come for a Covid jab because they are used to going for a flu jab,” she added.

“They are waiting for the green light.”

O’Brien’s Pharmacy, which has nine branches across the Fylde coast and west Lancashire, including in Bispham and Cleveleys, will be one of only 200 initial pharmacies to offer the jab when it opens a clinic in Fleetwood, hopefully within the next fortnight, alongside local health chiefs.

And its managing director Aisling O’Brien called on the Government to get the other 11,300 British pharmacies involved in the war against coronavirus too.

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She said: “We are hoping to be vaccinating 1,000 patients a week. As a pharmacist myself, I wanted to get involved purely because pharmacy has been open from day one.

“We have been one of the most available points of health care for patients since the pandemic started, and I just felt it was important that pharmacy was there to see the end of all this too.

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“There’s 11,500 pharmacies in the UK. If half did 20 jabs a day, that would be half a million a week.

“That’s where they are missing out.

“Pharmacists are readily trained and professional health care resources who have been providing vaccinations for many years.

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“A lot of us now do travel clinics, and the majority of pharmacies do flu vaccinations every year, and they have teams and pharmacists and technicians that are all qualified to do this work.

“It’s something the Government needs to be looking at rolling out.”

Every person in the UK has a pharmacy within a 20-minute walk, Ms O’Brien said.

But not all pharmacies were in a position to offer the jab when they were asked to apply to do so late last year.

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She added: “Unfortunately, not all pharmacies would have had the ability because the financial resources to set this up were very limited.

“There was very little information out there as to what we were going to be given.

“The financial involvement in this is quite heavy, and this is not a money making scheme by any stretch of the imagination.

“This is something which, as a group, we felt was important because pharmacy was open all the way through.

“My staff have worked tirelessly all the way through.

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“We have had sickness, we have had absence, we have had isolation, we have had staff who have been positive, we have had to deal with the rush at the beginning, and I felt it was important to our communities that, at the very end, pharmacy was still there to see this off.”

O’Briens will be looking for local volunteers to help man the clinic, taking on jobs such as admin work and car park attending.

Other local pharmacies say they are willing to help - but have not been offered the chance yet.

David Wilkinson, 55, qualified as a pharmacist more than three decades ago and has been at Hambleton Pharmacy, in Kiln Lane, for the past 16 years.

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The pharmacy has been giving flu jabs for the past three or four, but had an offer to administer Covid vaccinations declined, David said.

He said: “I’ve been giving flu vaccines for the past three months, and I personally was giving around 100 a day.

“As long as it was the Oxford/AstraZenica vaccine, which is pretty similar to the flu vaccine in that it’s kept the same, we are here and ready.

“We have the space; don’t forget, when I did the flu vaccines it was still during the pandemic.

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“Obviously we are not set up to give the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine because it has to be frozen and you have to give 1,000 within three days, so you need two, three, or four vaccinators and lots of space to have people wait for 15 minutes afterwards (as per safety guidance).

“With the Oxford one, you don’t have to wait afterwards. It’s literally in and out.

“I heard somebody say, if the 11,000 pharmacies were doing it, even if they were only doing 20 a day, which is dead easy, that’s 200,000 a day or a million a week, so it would be a big help if pharmacies were doing it.”

David added: “Back in December, everybody had to apply to give the Covid vaccine and tell them why you could do it, and if you had the space and expertise, so we all sent into the NHS our propositions to do it.

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“In this area, there’s only the Over Wyre Medical Centre at Knott End and Garstang Surgery which were allowed to do it, so there’s literally only two sites doing it.

“I think that’s mainly because you have to do so many.

“We did have an email back saying we hadn’t been chosen, but at some point in the future we may be needed.

“It’s all gone very quiet.

“We are all set up. We have all been doing the flu jabs for the past few months, so we are waiting and ready to go.

“I think the only hurdle is probably the supply. They probably just don’t have enough of the AstraZenica vaccine as yet.

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“I think in maybe a few weeks or a month’s time we might be getting involved.”

Meanwhile, Rizwan Akhtar, owner of Leyland Late Night Pharmacy in Hough Lane, said he is waiting to hear from health officials over his application to give vaccinations.

He said: “We have applied and the health bodies have expressed an interest in us doing it.

“The prerequisites are very stringent. There are a certain number of jabs you have to give out - a minimum of 1,000 a week - and other requirements such as space for social distancing and being open 84 hours a week.

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“We are fortunate in that we are centrally located, we are physically big and have four consultation rooms, and we have a big enough workforce to meet demands.

“I know other pharmacies locally have been put off from applying because of the strict requirements, and there is a petition nationally about it. They feel they should be able to offer this because they offer the flu jab every year.”

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