In November 2020, the NHS asked for support in delivering coronavirus vaccinations. St John’s Ambulance stepped up, providing some 30,000 volunteers across the UK. HA&W’s Alasdair and Rob were among those volunteers.
Fast forward 18 months, and we’re proud to announce that Rob has completed his 50th volunteer shift.
Now, as he prepares for an autumn booster campaign, he has a new volunteering challenge on the horizon too.
New and highly transmissible Covid variants made for a very busy winter
We last spoke to Rob in July 2021. He had recently undergone the training programme required to be a volunteer vaccinator and was well underway. But a lot has happened since then.
In autumn, came the Delta strain. This was followed in November by the highly transmissible Omicron variant and a rush to get the population boosted.
Rob takes up the story: “Our vaccination centre was comfortably running five stations when Boris Johnson announced the speeding up of the booster rollout.
“Overnight, any UK adult that wanted a booster could get one. That gave us just a few days to scale up our operations. We reconfigured the room, moved desks, and brought in new equipment and extra staff.
“It couldn’t be done all in one go but within days we were running nine vaccination stations and administering almost 800 doses a day.
“During that time, I was vaccinating 70 people each shift. That might not seem like a lot, but that’s one person every five minutes over a six-hour period.”
And it wasn’t as simple as sticking a needle into an arm and then moving on to the next.
“There are stringent checks to make,” Rob continues. “All sorts of complications and referrals occur and it’s vital we identify the cases that need flagging to the professionals so that they can take over. That might be clinical vulnerabilities, unrecognised prior vaccines, or consent issues.”
“After Christmas, things started to slow down again but that December was a very busy time.”
Spring bought its own unique challenges and rewards
In spring, the rollout was extended to children. This brought a new set of challenges.
“We reconfigured again. This time to make it much more child-friendly, creating a separate space away from needles and machines.”
“A high proportion of the children we saw were vulnerable, with special educational needs and disabilities.”
Lots of distraction was required.
“I remember during one particularly quiet adult shift,” Rob says, “I started doing some research. Mainly that meant checking out current kids’ cartoons and it paid off. Paw Patrol was a godsend and really helped to put the children at ease.”
Since then, there has been a slow move to business as usual. Covid vaccination will soon become more akin to the annual flu jab.
“The larger sites have been trimmed and the pharmacies that ran them have returned to their own premises. Lately, I’ve spent a lot of my vaccinating time in cosy cupboard-like backrooms.
“I’m currently down to around one shift a fortnight, keeping my hand in before the autumn campaign ramps things up again. It was nice to get the 50th shift under my belt before the summer recess.”
The people make the whole process worthwhile
Rob has many positive takeaways from the last 18 months or so and they’re all to do with the people he has met.
1. The general public has been amazing
“One of the best things about the whole process has been the people I’ve met. From age 5 to 95, from all over the world, it’s been a unique opportunity to engage with a wide variety of truly wonderful people.”
2. Volunteers generally have an incredibly positive outlook
“I’ve always found that people who give up their time for free to help others, usually have a really positive outlook.
“People don’t tend to get into volunteering because they’re bored. They want to make a difference. And once you get many like-minded people ‘shovelling coal together’, the fire burns all the brighter.”
3. Healthcare professionals are a different breed
“Twelve-hour shifts with high stress – and a buck that stops at them – and yet the professionals I’ve been alongside have all worked with this sense of calm authority.
“They’ve taught me a lot about crisis management; how to make better decisions, more quickly. They know what’s important and what isn’t, and they make that call in an instant, many times a day.
“It’s been a real privilege to work with them.”
With vaccination demand set to tail off, Rob’s been on the lookout for a new challenge
When medical material like blood, pathology samples, patient notes, scans results, and donated breast milk for neo-natal clinics needs transporting, courier services are on hand. Between the hours of 6 am and 7 pm on weekdays that is.
Outside of those times, delivery duties are taken over by Blood Bikes.
Rob explains, “Blood Bikes is a group of unpaid volunteers active at nights and on weekends, supporting the NHS. They work in Rutland and Leicestershire and support the East Midland air ambulance.
“And the NHS pays nothing. The service is completely free to them.
“The charity provides and maintains a fleet of vehicles and pays for fuel. The members pay subs as part of the team and do additional shifts outside of supermarkets, at events, or in town centres, with the bikes, drumming up support and collecting donations.”
Rob recently completed an advanced riding accreditation in road craft, with a focus on safety.
“In keeping with the training police riders undergo, it was all about spotting risks, making assumptions based on potential hazards, and always having an escape route.
“Bikes can naturally get around the town quicker than cars, which is why they’re used, but everything has to be done within legal speed limits and the laws of the road. And the product absolutely cannot be damaged. It’s definitely not a license to speed. Slow and steady wins the race.”
Stay tuned for more volunteering updates
Rob gets a real kick out of giving something back to his community and is grateful that HA&W is so willing to support him in that.
“No act is selfless,” he says, “volunteering feels good and also helps people, so everyone wins.
“My advice to everyone would be, if you haven’t volunteered before, dip your toe in. You might not look back.”
Rob is due to start his first shift with Blood Bikes in August. Keep checking in for future updates to find out how he gets on.
