Army supports GP practice for vaccination clinic in Shropshire

Three members of the armed forces joined Much Wenlock and Cressage Medical Practice's normal vaccination team for the sessions which took place on the Monday and Tuesday before Christmas.

They were part of a mass effort across Shropshire and the rest of the UK to provide booster jabs amid concerns over the Omicron variant of Covid.

Dr Jess Harvey, a GP from the medical practice, said the support from the military had made a significant difference in continuing the day-to-day running of the surgery.

She said: "We had three of them come to help is which is really good because it means our admin staff can carry on working at the surgery so there is minimal effect for our patients."

She also praised staff at the practice for the way they had worked to set up the booster sessions at short notice following the government announcement – and had coped throughout the past year.

She said: "It is hard because when it was announced and they were talking about the next three weeks, and over the next three weeks most of our appointments were already booked up because these are the busiest three weeks of the year.

"When we found out on the Sunday night with the announcement from the Prime Minister we found out at 8pm and 12 hours later we are sat in a meeting with all the other GPs from across the county trying to work out how we were going to do it, and within a few hours we had worked out how to make the capacity for up to 2,000 vaccinations at our practice alone."

She added: "I am full of admiration for my colleagues. It has been an incredibly long year – we have basically been vaccinating for 12 months with Covid and flu.

"I am incredibly lucky to work with a great bunch of people who are very dedicated and as soon as we said 'we need to do this' they stepped up and I am very proud of them and what they have achieved throughout the pandemic."