Firstly, I want to thank all of the exceptional frontline staff and volunteers at vaccination centres here in Notts for the incredible work that they have been doing to get people vaccinated in these exceptional circumstances.
Lots of people have asked me about vaccination centres and I have asked the accountable leads responsible for delivering the vaccination programme in Nottinghamshire to address the concerns that I share with my constituents. Below is our correspondence. 👇🏿
Yesterday, a new site has opened up at Forest Recreation Ground that will increase Nottinghamshire’s capacity to vaccinate our elderly and most vulnerable. Next week a new national vaccination centre will open in Nottinghamshire with the capacity to largely increase the daily vaccine rate of the region. I will be releasing more information regarding this site next week. The CCG is also anticipating that there will also be a number of smaller vaccination facilities opening locally.
I am pleased to report that yesterday and over the weekend GP’s will be going into care-homes to finish vaccinating residents, and from this Sunday all care homes with residents over 65 will have received their vaccines.
Towards the end of the month, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS and CCG will shift their focus to include the 75 to 79 groups. However, I understand that they are temporarily suspending making appointments for this group from yesterday until 28 January so they can prioritise the over 80s. Alex Ball, of Nottingham and Nottinghamshire ICS and CCG, has said:
“We need to carefully match the vaccine that is made available to us with the appointments offered to avoid any last-minute cancellations. We have asked this group to be patient while we first look to vaccinate the eldest and most vulnerable members of our community.
“I would like to reassure you that all of our modelling indicates that, as long as we continue to receive supply of the vaccine, we are on track to deliver the vaccines to the top four cohorts, which includes all over 70s and those who are clinically extremely vulnerable in line with the Prime Minister’s deadline of mid-February.”
I, too, am confident that with these new measures in place and new venues opening weekly we are still on track to achieve our targets of everyone within the top four cohorts receiving an offer for vaccination by mid- February. So for now,
- Do not contact the NHS, your GP or local hospital hub - the letter you receive will have full details of how to make an appointment
- Anyone over 80 who has not received or misplaced their letter can book online using https://www.swiftqueue.co.uk/nottinghamc19vpatient.php or call 0115 883 4640.
- Over 80s will also be able to book appointments at our three Hospital Hubs through the SwiftQueue link.
On a final note, our volunteers in Nottinghamshire have been exceptional during this rollout, and I have had many people emailing and asking about where they can sign up to help.
So, for anyone who wants to know more, @stjohnsambulance is helping to recruit, train and deploy up to 30,500 volunteers to support the COVID-19 vaccination programme in England. If you want to be a part of #StJohnPeople and #TeamVaccine, then please visit https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/.
For any more details on the above, please do email me on darren.henry.mp@parliament.uk.
Stay safe everyone,
Darren