Launch of mass vaccination centre in Northamptonshire is '80 per cent there'

Northamptonshire is the final stages of launching its own "large vaccination centre" in the style of the one unveiled in London this week.

Boris Johnson announced this week scheme to ramp up the number of residents receiving their first dose of the Covid-19 jab would see seven such hubs open across England.But health chiefs announced today that Northamptonshire is nearly "good to go" to launch its own centre operated by local health services.

Chief Executive of NHS Northamptonshire CCG Toby Sanders said at a press conference today (January 8): "Many of you will have picked up this week when we saw the first of seven of these large centres across the country in the ExCeL Centre in London.

"In Northamptonshire, we are putting in place and finalising plans to be able to open and run our own centre within the county which will provide significant additional capacity.

"I won't put a name against a location or venue. We do have a venue in the county that is physically pretty much good to go and the workforce model within that facility.

"We have the delivery models and we have the arrangements in place locally to be able to deliver this provided we can get the vaccine in sufficient supply coming into the county to be able to respond to this.

"Its ability to open depends on the ability to get vaccine deliveries in sufficient quantities into the county to enable us to do that.

"This is something where we are '80-per-cent-there' in going live. It's largely going to be vaccine dependent."

The press conference today also reported that:

■ Out of Northamptonshire's target of 135,000 vaccinations for priority groups by mid-February, 25,000 first doses have been completed.

■ Half of the county's over-80 population have been given their first dose.

The seven new venues announced earlier this week, which include the Etihad Tennis Centre in Manchester and Epsom Racecourse in Surrey, will be converted into regional centres in an effort to meet the government target of vaccinating 14 million people UK-wide by February.