• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Accessibility
  • Terms and settings
  • Site map
NHS County Durham CCG

NHS County Durham CCG

County Durham Clinical Commissioning Group

  • Home
  • About us
  • Our work
  • Get involved
  • Events
  • Documents
  • News
  • Contact Us

County Durham pharmacist and practice manger are recognised by the Prime Minister for their efforts in the COVID-19 pandemic response

26th May 2021

Pete Horrocks, Superintendent Pharmacist, Knights Pharmacy and Sarah Westgarth, Practice Manager, Station View Medical Centre were invited to a special reception held at No 10 Downing Street to thank NHS workers.

Knights Pharmacy, who currently run four vaccination centres across the country, opened their Bishop Auckland clinic next door to Station View Medical Centre in January 2021 and have now given over 30,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Working in collaboration with the Primary Care Network (PCN) the clinic has targeted the local population to offer convenient times and availability, to as many people as possible, and as a result increased the uptake of vaccines locally.

During the first wave of the pandemic the team at Station View Medical Centre suffered a great loss when Dr Poornima Nair became the first female GP to die from coronavirus.

Practice Manager Sarah Westgarth said, “Losing Dr Nair last year was a huge shock to the practice. It has given every member of our team a great passion to fight against COVID in her memory.”

Superintendent Pharmacist Pete Horrocks said: “It was a great honour to be recognised for the work we have done.

“There were less than 20 colleagues from across the NHS including nurses and doctors and I was the only pharmacist.

“The Prime Minister thanked all NHS workers, acknowledging their own personal challenges, and described his own COVID fight and the gratitude he felt for the treatment he received.” 

Each guest was invited to introduce themselves directly to the Prime Minister and was encouraged to give their own personal story of how they had contributed to the pandemic response. The Prime Minister heard real life stories of how NHS colleagues and patients had fought against COVID and showed great empathy for what he was hearing. 

“It was great to meet the Prime Minister face to face and hear him speaking so openly and taking an individual interest in everybody who had attended,” added Pete.

“He hosted the event with equal amounts of compassion, thanks and humour.  I will never forget this recognition from the PM – I am so proud to help the NHS in its response to the pandemic”.

Writing on his Twitter account the Prime Minister announced, “I was delighted to welcome NHS staff from across the UK to Downing Street yesterday.

” I know how tough the pandemic has been on our NHS, but I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. We wouldn’t be where we are today without you.”

Bishop Auckland MP, Dehenna Davison, met up with Sarah and Pete before the Prime Minister’s reception to hear about recent progress.

The Bishop Auckland MP said, “I’ve visited both Sarah and Pete at their practices this year.

“Their dedication is incredible, I am so proud that the Prime Minister has recognised the achievements that are happening here in Bishop Auckland.”

Primary Sidebar

Search the site

Find events, news, documents and more.

Patient transport in County Durham. Find out more.

Copyright © 2023 · County Durham CCG Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
We use cookies to optimise our website and our service.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}