Holiday coach adapted into mobile vaccination centre

A specially adapted coach and a car are being used to administer Covid-19 jabs in remote parts of the NHS Tayside area.

Around 400 people are expected to be vaccinated by trained Scottish Ambulance Service staff operating out of the modified coach, which was offered free of charge by Lochs and Glens Holidays of Gartocharn, as well as from a car which has been making house calls.

Starting on Wednesday, a team of five staff in the coach have been administering the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine to people aged 70 to 79, as well as to critically vulnerable patients.

A trained ambulance service vaccinator has been visiting patients in rural Perthshire in the car to vaccinate those who cannot leave their homes.

Scottish Ambulance Service medical director Jim Ward said: “This is a great initiative in the fight against Covid-19.

“We have already vaccinated more than 5,000 of our own staff, community first responders and students, which has been a fantastic effort by everyone involved.

“The bus is essentially a mobile vaccination clinic that can access remote and rural Scotland, providing a sheltered place where people can come and get vaccinated in a safe environment by trained healthcare professionals.

“The car will allow people who cannot leave their homes to be vaccinated.

“We have received great feedback from the people who have been vaccinated on the bus and also by those who have been visited at their homes.

“We are very grateful to Lochs and Glens Holidays for providing the bus and look forward to working alongside other health boards and Scottish Government colleagues in developing the initiative and rolling it out to other areas of Scotland.”

The vaccination bus and car pilot aims to support health boards in their vaccination efforts, and appointments are made through GP practices.

Dr Daniel Chandler, associate director of public health at NHS Tayside, said: “The vaccination programme is progressing well in Tayside with over 60,000 people already vaccinated across Dundee, Angus and Perth and Kinross.

“This mobile service provided by the Scottish Ambulance Service will help provide extra capacity to support our GPs and community vaccination teams as we move into the next phase of the programme.”

Neil Wells, managing director at Lochs and Glens Holidays, said: “It’s great to be able to help the Scottish Ambulance Service with their work to vaccinate our rural communities.”

Health Secretary Jeane Freeman said: “We appreciate all the offers of support as we rollout the biggest vaccination programme ever undertaken in this country.

“I would urge everyone to take up their appointment when they are offered one.

“The vaccination programme is one of three key ways we are working to beat this virus, along with our expanded testing programme to identify cases and break chains of transmission and the important lockdown restrictions everyone in Scotland must follow.

“All these measures work to greatest effect when they work together.”