International Immunisation Week

Drive Through COVID-19 Immunisation Clinics in Primary Care

The aim of International Immunisation Week is to promote the use of vaccines to protect people of all ages against disease. Immunisation saves millions of lives every year and is widely recognized as one of the world’s most successful health interventions.

There is immense effort across health systems around the globe to vaccinate populations as a wayto protect and recover from the COVID-19 pandemic. This effort has been well publicised in Wales, and we are fortunate to be living in a country where, as of the 27th April 2021, 1.76million people have received their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine and over 700,000 have received their second dose.

Our small part in the story of the vaccine roll-out is perhaps one that is less well known.

Early in 2021,through our work with the emerging All Wales Cluster Group, a question arose around the possibility of running drive through vaccination clinics in primary care.

At the time, it was reported there were drive through clinics operating in primary care in Cardiff South West, Dwyfor and Tywi Taf clusters.

We quickly set up an informal session bringing together GPs willing to share their learning and approaches with those interested in running drive-through clinics (at their practice or on a larger scale).

During the conversation, examples of larger scale cluster-wide and smaller scale practice-level drive-throughs were shared, demonstrating that Primary Care was already well-informed and experienced in this method of care delivery. Examples of drive-through flu clinics where 1,600 vaccines were administered in a day were shared. It was clear that there was learning and experience that could be applied to COVID vaccination efforts in primary care.

A key theme in the session was the different approaches being taken across different Health Board areas and how this translated into funding options, collaborative approaches and risk appetite for drive through clinics in primary care.

The main output of the meeting was the production of a generic standard operating procedure for drive through COVID-19 vaccination clinics that was made available to all clusters across Wales, to help and encourage more equitable access to primary care-led mass vaccination capacity.

If you would like to know more about drive through clinics in Wales or our work with the All Wales Cluster Group, please contact us at yma@dymani.cymru.

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