IN a year like no other, everyone in the health and social care sector has gone the extra mile, and among those who have been nominated for their commitment and dedication is the HMG Covid Vaccine Team based at Quay House Medical Centre.

Nominating the team, Andrew Moore writes: "The country has 'unlocked' from Covid in July courtesy of vaccinations on a massive scale, undertaken in challenging timelines.

"The HMG team delivering the vaccines from Quay House surgery have worked six, and sometimes seven-day weeks, from 7am to sometimes 7pm, come rain, hail, cold or heatwave.

"They've needed to be in work an hour before the 8am vaccination clinic starts to register vaccines batches, mix them and get them to the correct temperature.

"They've dealt with old folk who've not left their homes, out for fear, for months, constantly changing schedules when vaccine deliveries have had to be rescheduled and challenging members of the public who think things should have been done differently.

"The vaccine team is tiny yet they have worked tirelessly for more than six months to vaccinate thousands.

"Working under huge pressures, they have done so with humour, care, humility and unwavering dedication 'as a team', never complaining or failing to turn into work in the face of unrelenting queues of people to be vaccinated.

"As a consequence of this ongoing effort, and as part of a national effort, the numbers of vaccinated people have reached a level where we can begin to unlock and return to the lives we once knew – this is something the rest of Europe, and in fact the world, can only be jealous of and is attributable solely to the efforts of tiny teams like this the length and breadth of the country.

"Hereford's comparatively low infection rates, in the face of the Delta strain, are also symptomatic of these efforts and, no doubt, many lives have been saved by these efforts too."

The Hereford Times Health and Social Care Awards, presented in conjunction with the University of Worcester, will be streamed online, hosted by TV’s Dr Dawn Harper, on Thursday, October 21.

Nominations close on Wednesday, August 4, at noon.