Council and NHS leaders are taking the opportunity to thank staff across local authorities and the health and social care system in Oxfordshire for their tireless efforts to provide services and support communities and the most vulnerable throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pandemic has led to profound and far-reaching changes to the way we all work and access services, with staff across the NHS and local authorities working in partnership to rapidly stand up new services and deliver services in new ways.
Some of the successes include:
- the rollout of Oxfordshire’s COVID-19 vaccination programme;
- providing care and support to vulnerable residents;
- continuing the provision of health services;
- securing the continuity of other frontline services such as waste and recycling services and other social care services;
- establishing a local contact tracing system to supplement the national effort; and,
- setting up a countywide COVID secure team to provide advice to local businesses.
In December 2020, the NHS and local authorities began the enormous task of rolling out the largest-ever mass vaccination programme in the UK’s history.
The Oxfordshire Vaccination Delivery Board was set up to oversee the programme, comprising members from the Oxfordshire Clinical Commissioning Group, NHS Provider Trusts, GP Clinical Leads, Oxfordshire’s public health team, the county council and city and district councils, and the Oxfordshire Association of Care Providers.
The board oversaw the establishment of two hospital vaccination hubs, 21 GP-led local vaccination sites, a mass vaccination centre at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford, local pharmacies across the county, walk-in pop-up vaccine clinics, roving clinics with the ‘Health on the Move’ bus, and school immunisation programmes.
Since the first vaccine was delivered on 8 December 2020 at the Churchill Hospital, more than 1.5 million vaccinations have been administered to residents of Oxfordshire. This includes nearly 223,000 booster jabs since the rapid expansion of the programme on 13 December 2021, which equates to a near 90 per cent take-up by those eligible.