A bus which has been converted into a mobile coronavirus testing and vaccination centre made a planned stop in Milton Keynes on Friday (12/2).
It arrived in Milton Keynes as part of a trial with local healthcare training and solutions provider ECG, based in Bradwell Abbey.
The former city bus has been converted into a medical facility on wheels complete with three treatment bays and a staff area. It can be used to support the roll out of COVID-19 vaccinations to hard-to-reach communities and provide additional capacity for the NHS.
ECG, who are at the forefront of setting up vaccination centres, training vaccinators and delivering workforce testing solutions across the country, ran their daily testing clinic from the mobile centre, where they carried out Rapid Antigen tests on local residents including MP for Milton Keynes Ben Everitt.
The Project MOVE bus kits are designed to be easily installed into a city bus converting it into a mobile vaccination centre in under 24 hours to deliver up to 865 tests or 540 vaccinations per bus per day.
CEO of ECG Jane Lambert said: “There is a huge demand on the NHS and other healthcare partners to increase their capacity to support the national roll out of vaccinations. This solution could be used by GPs, community pharmacies and other healthcare providers not only as part of the response to the pandemic, but also as a longer-term solution for flu jabs, blood tests and other services.
“The ECG team are supporting healthcare providers to set up new vaccination centres, provide trained staff to administer the vaccines and train new vaccinators and testers. We are also supporting organisation in workforce testing. Having a mobile vaccination and testing facility can help us and other healthcare providers reach more people, more quickly for essential vaccinations and testing.”
David Brown, a Partner at 40two and Managing Director of Project MOVE said: “We started Project MOVE because we wanted to help alleviate the growing backlog of treatment due to the COVID response.
"One of the main challenges we find is the lack of availability of trained staff to work in the buses, which is why we’re so excited to work with ECG in their effort deliver more vaccines, testing and, most importantly, training the next generation. We have the platform and they have the trained people so between us we can provide a complete solution."
