How you may get your Covid-19 jab from a charity volunteer: Helpers with no medical experience are being recruited in roll-out of coronavirus vaccine
- St John Ambulance offering teaching for non first aiders on how to do injections
- The vaccination volunteers are only required to have two or more A-levels
- The charity usually provides first aid at more than 20,000 events each year
Volunteers without previous medical experience are being recruited to help with the roll-out of the coronavirus vaccine.
St John Ambulance is offering to teach those who are not first aiders how to administer injections.
Vaccine regulations have been overhauled to allow those who are not healthcare professionals to give the jab.
St John Ambulance is offering to teach those who are not first aiders how to administer injections (stock image)
In just two days, the organisation has signed up 1,500 of its existing volunteers to assist the NHS with the nationwide vaccination programme. It is now preparing to widen its recruitment drive to people who have not previously volunteered.
St John Ambulance has told helpers it expects to begin training within days. It has described the operation as ‘like nothing seen in peace time’ in this country.
Recruitment documents, seen by the Mail, show that vaccination volunteers are only required to have two or more A-levels.
They will be ‘trained to deliver the actual injection to patients [and] potentially react to any immediate adverse reactions’.
Vaccine regulations have been overhauled to allow those who are not healthcare professionals to give the jab. Pictured: St John Ambulance volunteers in Melbourne, Victoria
The job specification adds: ‘We’ll provide training for non-first aiders, including administering injections.’ Volunteers must be aged 18 to 69, deemed at low risk of Covid-19 and willing to commit to at least two six to eight-hour shifts per month.
The organisation is also looking to recruit vaccination care volunteers – who will support patients before and after their jabs by ‘providing reassurance and potentially dealing with medical emergencies’ – as well as welcome team volunteers to help with the recruitment drive. Participants have been told they will be deployed as soon as the beginning of December.
St John Ambulance plans initially to assist with the distribution of the flu vaccine, before offering the coronavirus jab when it is ready to be rolled outSt John Ambulance plans initially to assist with the distribution of the flu vaccine, before offering the coronavirus jab when it is ready to be rolled out.
St John Ambulance plans initially to assist with the distribution of the flu vaccine, before offering the coronavirus jab when it is ready to be rolled out (stock image)
The Department of Health and Social Care is amending regulations to ‘allow people who are not registered health care professionals to safely administer a Covid-19 or influenza vaccine’.
In a document setting out the changes, it states that an ‘expanded workforce is required to ensure that the Covid-19 vaccine can be safely deployed widely as soon as it should become available, given the capacity constraints of the current workforce that can administer vaccines’.
It adds: ‘All new vaccinators will have to undergo a comprehensive training programme and competency assessment.’
The charity usually provides first aid at more than 20,000 events each year. Pictured: First aiders line up for a briefing during the London Marathon in 2012
NHS sources insisted all those who administer the vaccine will be overseen by healthcare professionals. Richard Lee, St John Ambulance chief operating officer, said: ‘St John Ambulance is proud to have been asked to support NHS staff in getting ready to deliver a Covid-19 vaccination programme when one becomes available.’
The charity usually provides first aid at more than 20,000 events each year, but during the coronavirus crisis its volunteers have given more than 200,000 hours of support to doctors, nurses and local communities.