Community nursing teams from across the Walsall Together Partnership have been supporting the rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations to housebound residents in Walsall.

More than 1,000 elderly and vulnerable housebound people across the borough have received their vaccinations since the middle of January and many are due to begin receiving their second doses in the next few weeks.

The teams have been working in partnership with two of the local Primary Care Networks (PCN) to identify and contact patients either by phone, or by visiting (in cases where they haven’t been able to make phone contact) to arrange an appointment for their vaccination at home and complete their consent forms with them.

Kay Crowther, Clinical Lead for Community Nursing with Walsall Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “We are really proud to be working together with our partners on the vaccination roll out and supporting them in reaching our elderly and most vulnerable residents who are not able to leave the house.

“Our small team of dedicated community nurses have delivered over 1,000 vaccines so far to our housebound residents in Walsall which is quite an achievement in such a small space of time. All the residents and their carers have expressed such gratitude and relief when they have had their vaccine knowing they are one step closer to normality again. This is really lovely and so rewarding for our nurses knowing how much of a difference they are making to the lives of our patients.”

Nancy Blandin, one of the patients vaccinated at home, said: “I’m very happy to be receiving the vaccine, especially at home, as I would not have been able to get it otherwise.”

This was echoed by patient Robert Griffiths who said he was glad to be getting the vaccination at home as he wasn’t able to get to a clinic to receive it.