Weekly community update from our CEO - 31 December 2020

Posted Thursday, December 31, 2020 12:32 PM

An update to patients, communities and partners of Sherwood Forest Hospitals NHS FT

Good afternoon

I hope you had a safe and enjoyable Christmas, despite the challenges we all face and thank you for your on-going phenomenal support. The best way you can help us now is to continue to follow the guidelines, even when they feel hard. We need you to help keep infection rates down so we can offer safe care to patients. This morning we moved into Tier Four and please make sure you follow the restrictions, stay at home except for permitted reasons and do not travel into other tiers unless it is strictly necessary. The guidance can be found here: Tier 4: Stay at Home - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

At the end of this hard year, there is hope, in the form of two safe and effective vaccines. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine was approved yesterday and in mid-December, we started vaccinations using the first approved vaccine (Pfizer). Our vaccination programme prioritises the over 80s, colleagues in care homes and front line NHS workers. These clinics have been a huge achievement and we continue to vaccinate every day, reaching as many people as we can.

Whilst we have been running clinics at King’s Mill, this week we started vaccinating residents in care homes and the new Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine offers the opportunity to run sessions more widely as it is much easier to store and transport. The vaccination programme is a huge joint effort across the whole of the local health and care system. The vaccine offers individuals the opportunity to protect themselves and their loved ones from Coronavirus. We know people are anxiously waiting for their vaccination, but please do not contact us directly. We will contact you when it is your turn to be vaccinated and we cannot vaccinate anyone until it is their turn.

Thank you to our League of Friends who generously ensured every patient over Christmas received a gift and our chaplaincy arranged carol services at various outdoor sites across our hospitals, with kind support from the Salvation Army Band. Local schoolchildren also made and donated Christmas snow globes and pictures and our hospital radio station ran a request day on Christmas Eve.

Our hospitals are very busy at the moment and the number of patients we are treating with Coronavirus continues to rise. However, we are still here for every patient who needs us.

I wish you a safe New Year

Chief Executive

Richard Mitchell

Richard.Mitchell2@nhs.net

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