We arrived for our 8.00am shift yesterday to find that Dr PeterH had designed a new way for patients to rest once they had had their jab. Being Pfizer vaccine 15mins rest before leaving is compulsory. To save people sitting in a crowded room a snail shaped route was marked out in the waiting room. Once they entered the room a gong was sounded so the patient stood on a cross for a minute, then when the gong sounded again a minute later, they moved to the next cross and so on. After 15 moves they could leave the surgery. Brilliant, this meant that everyone was equally spaced from each other and the one way system would ensure no crowding. The theory was good and indeed for most of the day it worked well. However, the early shift is always busy and people are vaccinated swiftly. My job was to escort them a short distance from the vaccine area to the entrance to the snail. There a member of staff would take details on the computer. The rate of vaccines was one every 30 secs but as the reception was slow a small queue formed. Then the computer crashed but the vaccinations continued. As each person came out of vaccine area I told them to join the queue. The 15 mins was supposed to take place inside the snail, but now we had people queueing out in the garden. I decided to tell every person to check their watches as their 15 mins will have started from the time they had their vaccination. With people pouring out every 30 seconds I eventually had a queue about 50 metres long winding around the garden with people looking at their watches. Just before the computer was working again, I had people outside whose 15 mins were up. Everyone found it really amusing with no complaints. It was a lovely sunny day and they were all pleased to have had their jab, Once the computer was working the queue disappeared very quickly. All good fun but the main thing was by the end of the day all the vaccine had been used so another 8 or 900 hundred people had a had a jab. We have also now have had over £300 donated by grateful patients towards the GAVI charity.

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