'HELP SAVE LIVES'
Best-selling author and doctor Adam Kay urges Sun readers to help us recruit 50,000 for our Jabs Army
NEARLY 15,000 readers have joined The Sun’s Jabs Army to volunteer at Britain’s new Covid vaccine centres.
The good news comes as the Government revealed that 1.3million people have already had their first dose of the vaccine.
⚠️ Read our coronavirus live blog for the latest news & updates
5
But the NHS needs to vaccinate 2million people a week to reach Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s goal of 13.2million coronavirus jabs for the top priority groups by mid-February.
We have teamed up with the Royal Voluntary Service charity to recruit stewards to help the jab roll-out go smoothly.
More than 50,000 are needed, and you only need to commit to two six-hour shifts a month at a vaccine service.
Sign up at
Just sign up via the NHS volunteer responders’ app – full details of how to join are below.
Here, best-selling author and hospital doctor Adam Kay backs The Sun’s Jabs Army campaign, while vaccine centre volunteer Fiona Pleasant explains what sort of jobs you will be asked to do.
How to sign up
VOLUNTEERS for the Jabs Army are being asked to first register online at
You will then receive an email with log-in details to sign up online.
Finally, you will be asked to download the GoodSAM app on a smartphone which will match you to a role in your area.
Services will be opening in the coming days and weeks, with different areas up and running at different times, so you might not be required on site for some weeks. Not everyone who signs up will need to be called upon.
You need to commit to only two six-hour shifts a month at a vaccination service, and no prior experience or qualifications are required.
You will work as part of a team that will include NHS staff and volunteers. The Royal Voluntary Service will conduct appropriate background checks.
Go to
'Join now and help save a life'
By Dr Adam Kay
THE situation in our hospitals right now has never been tougher, but for the first time there is a shard of light — in the shape of Covid vaccines.
This is the only way we will see the back of this terrible illness that has cost so many thousands of lives.
5
Rolling out these vaccines is an unimaginably colossal task, and you can help to make this happen smoothly and safely.
Please consider signing up for the Jabs Army (I can’t believe they rejected my suggestion of “Bunch Of Pricks”).
It’s a brilliant initiative to recruit volunteer stewards to help get the vaccine rolled out, and it’s your chance to truly make a difference and save lives.
Thousands have already signed up to this wonderful cause but let’s get it to 50,000.
VACCINE IS SAFE
We all owe an enormous debt of gratitude to NHS staff.
5
I know from my days as a doctor how tough the job can be, but I never experienced anything like this: Working double shifts on understaffed wards, abandoning any hopes of days off, creating intensive care units out of disused corners of the hospital, putting your own life on the line.
I can’t have been alone in wishing I could have done more to help.
I answered the shout-out for former doctors, but it turns out there wasn’t much need for gynaecologists.
Ignore your tinfoil- hat-wearing uncle on Facebook: Vaccines are SAFE and vaccines SAVE LIVES. In fact, three million children would die every year were it not for vaccines.
The jabs will help us see life return to normal, and I urge you to play your part.
- Comic and writer Adam Kay worked for many years as a doctor and is author of the best-seller, This Is Going To Hurt.
'So happy to be playing a small part'
RETIRED primary school teacher Fiona Pleasant has already tried her hand at some of the jobs our Jabs Army volunteers will be doing at vaccine centres all over the country.
She has been working as a volunteer at her local community hall in Woodford, East London, which has been converted into a medical centre for patients from 40 local GP surgeries.
5
At the Sir James Hawkey Hall, mum-of-two Fiona, 61, hands out raffle tickets to allocate elderly patients to bays where they will receive their Covid vaccinations.
Later she calls out their numbers when it is their turn to get a jab.
Fiona has also been given the vital job of disinfecting chairs in the socially distanced waiting area after each time they have been used to avoid any chance of infection.
REWARDING
Other volunteers meet and greet the patients, who currently are all over 80, to help make sure there is a smooth flow through from reception to the vaccination area.
Every patient has to sit down for 15 minutes after having the vaccine and volunteers monitor them to make sure they suffer no side-effects.
Fiona says: “It is really busy and I absolutely love it. I’m delighted to be playing a small part.
“It’s inspiring to see what the NHS is doing here. I am happy to give my time for as long as I am needed. It is very rewarding.
5
Most read in News
“The elderly people who are coming in are generally very calm and relaxed, and just happy to be given their slot. They are tremendous.”
READ MORE SUN STORIES
GP Dr Siva Ramakrishnan, 44, said: “We are so grateful for all the help from our volunteers.
“They are all very pleasant and helpful and do a fantastic job with the patients.”
Daily UK Covid cases pass 60,000 for first time in worst day yet as another 830 people die
GOT a story? RING The Sun on 0207 782 4104 or WHATSAPP on 07423720250 or EMAIL [email protected]
Topics