Specially designed plaques have been presented to the three Forth Valley College campuses, to thank them for their role in helping to deliver more than 304,000 doses of the Covid-19 vaccine.

A total of 304,467 first and second doses of the Covid-19 vaccine were administered across all three campuses – Falkirk (171,613), Stirling (72,337) and Alloa (60,517). Across Forth Valley at total of 203,755 people were vaccinated at Forth Valley College sites – 106,706 in Falkirk, 60,914 in Stirling and 36,135 in Alloa.

The state-of- the-art campuses have been acting as community vaccination hubs since the end of January 2021. However, with many staff and students due to return to college for the coming term, their important alternative role has come to an end and the last vaccination clinics will take place on 13th August 2021.

NHS Forth Valley’s Chief Executive, Cathie Cowan, said: “We cannot thank Forth Valley College enough for their kind use of all three of their campuses and I hope that these plaques will serve as a permanent reminder of the vital support they gave to NHS Forth Valley at a critical time.

“These modern, accessible campus buildings provided flexible indoor spaces with good parking and transport connections which made them ideal for delivering the vaccine to people of all ages. We are very grateful to the college staff who worked with us to make this happen and appreciate all the support they have given our vaccination teams over the last six months.

Accepting the plaques, Forth Valley College Principal, Dr Ken Thomson, added: “As Forth Valley College is at the heart of the communities of Falkirk, Stirling and Alloa, we felt it was important to offer NHS Forth Valley our campuses as local vaccination centres. We are proud of the role we played and delighted that our assistance helped to deliver this important vaccination programme across Forth Valley.”

Throughout the pandemic, the campuses had robust procedures in place to deliver Covid-19 vaccines as quickly and safely as possible. This included signage to support physical distancing, reception areas to check in people and explain the vaccination procedures, separate waiting areas, individual vaccination booths and one-way systems. These were complimented by regular enhanced cleaning procedures including an innovative campus wide fogging technique, which took place at regular weekend intervals.