Prof Mike Holmes, who helps coordinate York's mass vaccination centre, asks in this week's column for The Press for eligible people to make their way there and get their autumn Covid booster and flu jabs after it opened to walk-ins.

 

"This month we are doing a final heart felt appeal to all eligible York people to come and have their Covid and Flu vaccinations.

We’ve opened up the doors for walk ins at our Askham Bar Community Care Centre. It’s open every single day for anyone who needs their Covid or Flu vaccination, or both.

Anyone from our York GP Practices can have both jabs by just walking into the site anytime from 9am til 6.30pm Monday to Saturday and Sunday mornings.

We proud ourselves for never having closed our doors over the last two years. Through all weathers, our vaccinators have dedicated themselves to vaccinating our population, protecting them from becoming seriously ill.

The least people can do is make their way here for their important Autumn booster jabs and have their flu jab at the same time – it’s not much to ask.

During November we’re also going to be running Saturday Grab a Jab flu clinics across the City. The first one will take place on Saturday 19 November at our Unity Health GP Practice At Kimberlow Hill, Heslington. Watch out for more information on our website and social media platforms.

We vaccinated around 8,000 people last week at the site, but we know there are more people who haven’t yet had their jab. Please do your bit to get the word out to colleagues and family that we are now opening up to walk ins for the next few weeks.

The NHS is under severe pressure this winter, more so than ever before. Nimbuscare is speaking to partners across the City to look at ways to ease the pressure on our hospitals.

Our heart failure service, based at Acomb Garth Community Centre, is working really well. This service was developed by clinicians working collaboratively to reduce the number of people waiting for vital support and treatment for heart conditions.

We’ve successfully supported many people, making sure their condition doesn’t deteriorate further.

We’re also working with the hospital to support people who are waiting to come into hospital.

This week we had our first Green Summit – with practices from across North Yorkshire and York. As COP27 is happening at political level the environmental sustainability agenda is equally important on the ground in General Practice in York.

We are looking at our carbon footprint and looking to take collective steps to reduce it. We are fortunate to have some real experts in this field in the city and they are working with Nimbuscare to put plans in place.

There is no doubt we will have to work together as a city to reach our targets as part of the NHS Net Zero Carbon plan by 2030. I will be talking about this morning in the future."