Community care homes continue vaccine roll out

Community care homes continued to vaccinate staff and residents this week, with Jewish Care leading the way with 140 procedures so far.

This comes as Boris Johnson announced a third national lockdown across England, with coronavirus cases soaring and concern about a rapidly-spreading variant of the infection.

Jewish Care, which is the community’s largest social provider, said 140 of its staff and residents had been vaccinated as of Tuesday.

The first dose of the jabs were given across its facilities, including at Anita Dorfman House, Otto Schiff and Kun Mor & George Kiss.

Its chief executive, Daniel Carmel-Brown said: “We are delighted that the vaccine is finally starting to be administered in care homes. Residents and their families are so relieved that their loved ones are on course to having protection against the virus and we hope that this vaccine is the start of finding our way back to some kind of normality.”

Elsewhere, Sage care home in Golders Green confirmed that of its  28 staff who have had the first dose, 10 are due to have the second jab on 8 January.

The remaining 18 will get the second dose on 15 January, along with 39 of its residents.

Saying they will accept either the Pfizer/Biontech or Oxford vaccines, its joint chair Adrian Jacobs paid tribute to doctors at the home for arranging vaccinations for staff and residents.

“They set up an ad-hoc vaccination centre in the lounges’ of Sage to vaccinate all residents and staff that wanted it. We were very honoured to be one of the first 10 nursing homes in England to receive the vaccination”, he said.

Meanwhile, Jewish Choice in Brent said it was going to launch its vaccination programme this week, with 20 of its staff getting the jab on Wednesday.

Remaining staff and residents are due to receive the first dose on site, on Thursday.

This comes after concerns were raised when the home was told in early December, that it may not be able to vaccinate people until mid-February.

Speaking on Tuesday, its chief executive, Paula Peake, said: “We’ve had a frustrating time of it. As of yet we’ve not had any vaccinations”.

“Until yesterday there was either ‘radio silence’ or the goal posts moving” in terms of getting hold of the jabs, “so we have rather been kept on tenterhooks.”

“We have been pulling-out all the stops to keep residents safe with daily Rapid Flow Tests for everyone entering the building and all residents and staff continuing to be tested weekly with the PCR (polymerise chain reaction) Test.”