London, England  13th December 2021

The increased pace of COVID-19 booster jabs means expanded demand for St John Ambulance’s team of vaccination volunteers, and the charity is calling on every trained vaccinator to engage.

In response to the health emergency outlined by the Prime Minister on national television on 12th December, the charity’s Head of Community Response, Adam Williams said: “St John Ambulance recruited and trained almost 30,000 vaccination volunteers – including 20,000 vaccinators – between November and March. If everyone who trained to vaccinate with St John steps forward now – even for just two six-hour shifts – we will have more than enough people to do everything that’s required of us over the next few weeks and help the nation get ahead of the Omicron variant.”

Since the start of January, the volunteers of our English member have delivered millions of COVID-19 and flu vaccinations through 850,000 hours of volunteering. All vaccination volunteers have been emailed, with more details of how to book shifts. St John Ambulance’s online support systems for vaccination volunteers are being updated regularly, as new locations open and opportunities to vaccinate become available.

England’s Deputy Chief Medical Officer, Professor Jonathan Van-Tam has joined the appeal writing to every St John vaccination volunteer acknowledging their huge achievement, thanking them and asking them to undertake vaccinator shifts as soon as possible.

The appeal for more vaccination volunteers to step forward resulted in a 200% increase in activity in the following week, with almost 24,000 hours delivered. People are booking shifts well in advance for the festive season, including volunteers vaccinating on Christmas Day.