Hundreds receive Covid jab at pop-up clinic in Gamesley

Hundreds of people have received their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine at a pop-up clinic in Gamesley.  

The walk-in clinic - the first of its kind in Glossopdale - was based at the Winster Mews car park, off Melandra Castle Road, on Saturday (5 June). 

It was set up in response to rising Covid infection rates in the Gamesley and Glossopdale area - including cases of the Delta variant which first originated in India. 

Any High Peak residents over the age of 30 who hadn't yet been vaccinated were invited to drop in, without an appointment, to get a Pfizer-BioNTech jab. 

Jacqui Grove, from Glossop Health Team, said it was a "great and successful day" with 405 people vaccinated in total, which she described as "a great achievement". 

She said it was mainly aimed at 30 to 39 year olds, but it was opened up to 16 to 39 year olds later in the day. 

Among those who received their first jab was High Peak MP Robert Largan, who shared the news on Facebook and said a "huge thanks to all the amazing NHS staff and volunteers who are doing a fantastic job". 

More than 400 people received their first jab at the pop-up clinic. Image: John Parkins.  

Jacqui said: "Thank you to everyone who attended. Also a big thank you to everyone who brought us bottles of water, cream cakes and Gregg's for lunch. We all really appreciate you thinking about us. 

"An extra special thank you goes out to the team at Jericho Cafe for supporting us with chairs, tables, food and drinks and the team at the Geoffrey Allen Centre for allowing us all to use your facilities. We cannot do these sessions without the support of our amazing community. 

"As always, a VERY BIG THANK YOU to all of the Glossop Health Team, who supported our first pop-up vaccination clinic. Our amazing volunteers, car park team, booking in team, screeners and vaccinators, admin support, pharmacy team and observation tent team. It was busy and very warm, and the session ran over by two hours - not one person complained. The focus was on getting as many of our younger people vaccinated as possible and using up our available vaccines.

"There is so much organising going on behind the scenes to make all of our clinics happen. All of our Glossop and Hadfield GP practices have so much to do answering queries and booking people in. THANK YOU to everyone from EVERY practice for all that you do." 

The Winster Mews car park was a hive of activity on Saturday in the sunshine. Image: John Parkins. 

Anyone over the age of 40 who still hasn't received a first Covid vaccine and was unable to attend the pop-up clinic can go to Glossop Cricket Club on Wednesday evening (9 June) from 5pm to 8pm for an Oxford-AstraZeneca jab. 

It's also open to anyone who wasn't able to get their second vaccine last week, after Glossop Health Team reported that some 116 patients failed to show up without cancelling their appointment on Thursday morning. People can only have their second jab if an eight-week period has passed since their first. 

Alternatively, people can also book an appointment at a mass vaccination centre online at www.nhs.uk/coronavirus-vaccination or by calling NHS 119.

As well as the pop-up clinic, enhanced testing was also rolled out on Thursday and Friday in a bid to slow the transmission rate in Gamesley.

Every household in Gamesley should have had free PCR tests delivered to their door, with people over the age of five at each address encouraged to take a test. The results of these tests and their impact on infection rates should be known very soon. 

The joint action by Derbyshire County Council and other partner agencies was taken as the weekly cases of coronavirus in the Gamesley and Glossop area have trebled.

In the final two weeks of May, 63 people tested positive for Covid – of which 42 were either confirmed or suspected to be variants of concern – compared to 22 people who tested positive in the last two weeks of April.

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