Professor Mike Holmes, who leads York’s largest Covid vaccination centre on the former Askham Bar Park & Ride site, writes his third in a series of columns in The Press today:

As we continue with the vaccination programme, we’ve remembered that it is exactly one year since the first cases of coronavirus in the UK were identified in York.

For the last year healthcare professionals throughout the country have been focused on caring for the population as best they can. The population has had to deal with a different way of living, with restrictions and with the prospect of being affected in some way by this horrible disease.

It has been a long and difficult year for everyone with no real sign of let up yet. If we are to get through this together then respect, kindness and empathy seem even more important than ever before as we step up another gear to manage the biggest vaccination programme the NHS has ever seen.

During the pandemic I have felt first hand just how difficult this is both at my practice and at the vaccination centre. Emotions can run high and people can behave and say things that seem out of step with what is going on. Staff are under huge pressure too. I completely get it.

In these circumstances empathy for one another is so important.

All the staff at the vaccination centre have been acutely aware of the way people feel as they visit Askham Bar for their vaccine. It’s a mixture of so many emotions and they know that the compassion they show them all is so important – especially when those emotions run high.

For the most part we have been overwhelmed by the respect and kindness that has been shown to the NHS and voluntary workers who are doing their very best in difficult times. Many of us are struggling too and everyone’s wellbeing is as much a priority as delivering the vaccine.

The efforts of every vaccination team right across our region has brought encouraging news. The latest figures on Thursday last week showed that we’d vaccinated well over 1m people in our region so far and across the North East and Yorkshire we’d vaccinated the highest percentage of our over 80’s priority group than any other region in England. This is a fantastic achievement and is something to be very proud of.

We aim to keep going at this rate, as long as the vaccine is delivered to us in York. Each day we are learning and improving. The vast majority of our patients come in and out of the Vaccination Centre within 30 minutes and leave with a smile on their face. That is one of the reasons healthcare is such a fulfilling profession.

NHS teams have been vaccinating at the York hospital hub and GP surgery sites. They’ve been going out to care homes and housebound patients too. And we are making good progress with vaccinating all our over 70’s and Clinically Extremely Vulnerable patients.

In addition, we will soon begin to call on patients to come and have their second dose of the vaccine. Those patients who had their first jab in December will be offered their second jab from March.

So, let’s keep up this positive momentum and goodwill. At the end of the day we’re all human beings with human feelings. There’s a mammoth job to be done and every single one of us has an important role to play.

As Barack Obama once said : “Put yourself in other people’s shoes to see the world from their eyes. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” At the moment our teams are reminding themselves of that every day.