Dr Eilir Hughes
Nominated for Critical (key) worker award
Dr Eilir Hughes is a GP based in Nefyn, North Wales. He has played an important role during the pandemic.
He founded the Fresh Air Wales campaign to promote the importance of ventilation and mask-wearing to reduce the risk of spreading and catching Covid-19.
He worked closely with Anglesey County Council to help them improve ventilation in schools and they introduced CO² machines to monitor air quality before any official guidelines were introduced.
He also established a vaccination programme in the community. Tŷ Doctor in Nefyn was one of the first GP surgeries to vaccinate patients with the Pfizer vaccine. Before that happened, this vaccine was only used in big vaccination centres due to the very low storage temperature required for the vaccine and the short time window to administer thousand-dose batches.
He worked with clinicians and local builders to draw up plans for a field hospital in a leisure centre in the community in case there would be a need during the first wave of the pandemic. He worked with a local asbestos specialist to find an independent supply of PPE and FFP3 masks, which were distributed to local care homes, surgeries and the local hospital.
He acted as clinical lead in the local community hospital, Ysbyty Bryn Beryl and opened a Covid recovery ward. He established a separate Covid-19 assessment unit at the hospital also to assess patients with breathing difficulties on behalf of GPs in the Dwyfor area.