The start of the “biggest vaccine campaign in the UK’s history” will mark a “decisive turning point” in the coronavirus fight, the chief executive of NHS England has said.
Sir Simon Stevens said that dozens of hospital hubs across the country will see people older than 80 vaccinated against COVID-19 from tomorrow, followed by a rollout to GP practices and care homes by Christmas.
“Tomorrow is the beginning of the biggest vaccination campaign in our history, building on successes from previous campaigns against conditions: diseases like polio, meningitis, and tuberculosis,” he said.
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The UK government has ordered millions of doses of COVID vaccines. But when will you get yours? And how will they be rolled out?
“There’s every prospect we think that by next spring the high-risk groups identified by medical experts will all have been vaccinated.”
While he said care home residents will begin to be vaccinated by Christmas, he did not address when he expected the administration in homes to be widespread.
There are known challenges in getting the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to care home residents, as it needs to be stored at minus 70C and only comes in boxes containing 975 doses.
Asked about people who are hesitant about getting the voluntary vaccine, Sir Simon said it faced the same independent assessment as previous vaccines which were found by regulators to be “safe and effective” – and that the NHS “has got a great track record” of jab rollouts.
Sir Simon urged people to remember to be patient as it will take “some weeks and months” to reach all vulnerable people.
“So in the meantime, we’re going to have to continue to be very careful,” he said.
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“But if we do that I think there’s every chance that we will look back on tomorrow as marking a decisive turning point in the battle against coronavirus.”
The UK has ordered 40 million doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech jab, enough for 20 million people because two doses are needed.
The first order of 800,000 doses will vaccinate 400,000 people.
Earlier on Monday, the chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, echoed warnings that the rollout is “a marathon, not a sprint”.
He stressed that even many over-80s – who fall into the high risk group – may not get the needle for a few months.
“I don’t think people should expect anything over the next few days because the reality is that for the vast, vast, vast majority of people this will be done in January, February, March,” he said.
In Newcastle upon Tyne, one of the hubs preparing to start the jabs on Tuesday, pharmacist Abdul Basit had been training all day at the city’s Royal Victoria Infirmary.
Pharmacist Abdul Basit, 23, has been preparing to start the jabs
“It’s a great privilege because we all know how much of a difference this will make,” he said.
“We’ve done all the training now and we are ready. It’s a big responsibility, but when we start in the morning we will just keep going and see as many people as we can.”
England GPs have been warned to start preparing staffing for COVID-19 vaccination centres led by their surgeries by 14 December.
After protecting the over-80s, GPs will be told to work through the rollout according to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s priority list as more stocks arrive.