Portsmouth mass coronavirus vaccination centre in St James' Hospital sees staff in tears as roll-out begins

More than 90 staff are running the site at St James’ Hospital, with a workforce made up of NHS workers coming out of retirement, volunteers from the Hive community group, and personnel from the Royal Navy.

For Beverly Bayes, the matron at the vaccination centre, it marks an emotional return after two years of retirement.

She said: ‘I had worked in the NHS since 1979. If you told me when I retired that I would be back in two years, I wouldn’t have believed you.

‘But now I feel so very proud and humble to come back. There is so much goodwill directed to the NHS. It’s been very emotional.

‘Some staff are volunteering on their days off – they want to be part of the vaccination effort that badly.

‘They want the NHS - and life - back to normal.’

Therapist Alice Morris has redeployed from the Battenburg Child Development Centre in Hilsea to help vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible.

The 24-year-old: ‘It’s really exciting – I feel quite proud that I can help in a small way. Every little helps – and it feels amazing to be part of something so big.

But the strain on every aspect of the NHS has been immense, the key worker said: ‘There have been lots of ups and downs.’

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Geoff Lewis, who heads the 40-strong estates team on the site, said his team faced a huge task turning more than 30 rooms in the mental health unit into a vaccination centre that can process a patient every eight minutes.

He said: ‘We’ve had to rip out beds, showers, toilets – it’s been a lot of work.

‘But I feel massively privileged to be part of the work. It moves me to tears sometimes.

For Stephanie Clark, operational manager for the vaccine roll-out across Portsmouth, organising staff so that the site can accommodate more than 1,000 patients across 12-hour working days has not been easy.

She said: ‘The logistics of staffing has been the biggest challenge.

‘It’s the result of a lot of hard work, a lot of teams pulling together. It feels amazing to see it in operation.’

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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