More details of how the vaccinations will take place in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have been revealed at a meeting of the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) board meeting this morning.

RCHT chief executive Kate Shields was asked whether vaccinations would be carried out on the Isles of Scilly and said they were looking at available options.

The first vaccine, which is due to be started next week, is from Pfizer and has to be stored at minus 70 degrees. Due to this there are issues around transporting it.

Mrs Shields said:

"Where we have vulnerable patients in the Isles of Scilly we will be vaccinating them.

"Obviously there are travel issues there and we are looking at what we can do. I'm not sure if I should say this but we have been looking at using a drone to fly things to the Isles of Scilly and we are looking if the vaccine can be delivered like that."

Mrs Shields also said that it was expected that vaccinations would start in Cornwall next week and would initially be given at a central site at Treliske.

But she said that another mass delivery site had been identified with a third also being finalised.

The chief executive said that it was "really exciting times as we have a covid vaccination that works."

She said that the trust's chief pharmacist "is doing an amazing piece of work to get us in a position where we can start vaccinating people as early as next week."

Mrs Shields said that there are 46,000 people in Cornwall which will need to be vaccinated in the first phase which will focus on frontline health and care workers as well as care home residents and older people.

She said that Cornwall still has "relatively low levels of covid and hospitalisations" and that with the vaccine it was hoped that Cornwall could be prevented from seeing the levels of infection and hospitalisation seen elsewhere in the country.

With the issues around moving the Pfizer vaccine Mrs Shields said that care home staff and residents may have to travel to the central site to be vaccinated.

The chief executive also said that she wanted to reassure people about the vaccine: "This vaccine has been developed in an amazingly quick time but it has gone through all the proper processes."

And she said that the vaccination sites would be strictly controlled by the trust's infection control teams to ensure that those going for vaccination would be safe.

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