NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria launches pioneering care home vaccination scheme

Nurses will be able to vaccinate residents at care homes under pioneering new scheme.

NHS Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated Care Board is the first in the UK to allow nursing home staff to offer the service.

A trial took place during the Covid-19 pandemic and allowed care home staff to deliver coronavirus and flu vaccinations to care home residents and other staff in Barrow.

Now the programme has been rolled out across Lancashire.

Carole McCann, programme director and clinical lead for the Lancashire and South Cumbria ICB vaccination programme, said: “Care home residents are among the most clinically vulnerable members of our society so protecting them from illness is a priority.

“Identifying that we have a skilled nursing workforce in this sector and recognising that they are best placed to vaccinate residents means that this new approach not only ensures residents feel more comfortable and safe being given a vaccination by someone they know, but it also frees up vital NHS resource by taking some of the burden off GP practices and Primary Care Networks.

“We were so impressed with how the pilot went and the feedback we received that it then gave us the opportunity to roll this new way of working out across the patch.”

In total, Lancashire and South Cumbria has 134 care homes with 6,546 nursing beds.

Carole added: “The amount of nursing homes that have opted in to this new way of working speaks volumes in how successful this new approach has been.

“I’m very proud of this piece of work and the team that have helped implement it, also of the staff in the nursing homes who have trusted us to work with them and support them with a new skill set that they have embraced.”