Statement on Blackburn Cathedral vaccination centre

3rd February 2021

Our large vaccination sites have been extremely busy over the past week which has resulted in queues outside Blackburn Cathedral over the weekend and at the beginning of this week. We are very sorry to those who had to wait for a long time to be vaccinated, this isn’t good enough and we want to reassure people this has improved.

We are working really hard to improve the experience of our patients attending all of our vaccination centres. We have put additional facilities on at the Blackburn Cathedral site and are pleased to say that the process is now much quicker. We would like to thank all of our partners and the Blackburn Cathedral team who are all helping to support our vaccination programme.

This vaccination service has been set up at pace and staff are working exceptionally hard to vaccinate people as swiftly as possible, we want people to have an excellent and quick experience and do not expect this to be an issue moving forward.

We would like to reassure people who are attending their Covid vaccination appointments that our sites are safe and follow social distance guidelines. It’s important that you attend your appointment on time. The vaccine is absolutely instrumental in our fight against Covid and the devastating effects it is having in our communities.

The Lancashire and South Cumbria vaccination programme has made a strong start with more than 300,000 people being vaccinated as of 4 February 2021. Vaccines are now being administered at more than 11 hospitals, over 36 GP-led services, three High Street pharmacies and five large-scale vaccination centres across Lancashire and South Cumbria with more coming online over the coming days and weeks.

The rollout of the vaccine and establishing these sites involves a wide range of organisations working together. We need to thank the significant support to the NHS to deliver the Covid-19 vaccination programme from our wider partners including Lancashire County Council, Cumbria County Council, Blackburn with Darwen Borough Council, Blackpool Council, our district councils, the military, police, local businesses and many more.

 

Jane Scattergood:

My name is Jane Scattergood, I'm the Covid Vaccination Director for Lancashire and South Cumbria.

I'd like to talk about the queues that we experienced at Blackburn Cathedral over the weekend and I would like to offer an apology to everybody who was affected by that.

It is really difficult to stand in the cold in January especially when we have been contacting the elderly and the vulnerable. I'm really sorry that this happened.

We've worked really hard to make progress, we have improved patient flow, we have changed the way people walk through the building, get their health screening and get their vaccination in a safe way.

We have put up extra accomodation outside that is heated but the whole plan of the system of vaccination is that you come, you get registered, you get your health screening and you flow through the building and out.

We've put in these extra measures and I'm really pleased to say that it is working brilliantly now. People are arriving, being checked, getting their vaccine and exiting 
the building within about 20 to 25 minutes and that is really good and really positive.

We want to make sure that we can vaccinate as many people as rapidly as possible just to find that perfect point where people can flow through the building well and we maximise the number of vaccinations but we don't overload the system.

Thank you for your patience and once again I'm really sorry if you experienced those queues.

Return to header