Vaccination centre hits 20,000 milestone
ANOTHER huge milestone was reached at Newbury Vaccination Centre on Friday as the hub announced it had administered its 20,000th vaccination.
The news comes just 19 days after the centre announced it had completed 10,000 jabs.
In a Facebook post on Friday, the centre – based at Newbury Racecourse – said: “This morning we administered our 20,000th vaccination!
“We are so proud of this milestone which we have achieved in just six weeks.
“A massive thank you is owed to all the clinical staff and admin staff in the nine practices, our army of volunteers, local businesses and community groups and all our patients for their support so far.”
The centre said it was now vaccinating patients aged 16 to 64 who have certain long-term conditions and adult carers (JCVI cohort six).
It said: “This is a large group of around 11,000 patients so we will be focusing on this group for the next few weeks.
“We also have more carers coming forward to register so this group is expanding.
“If you are one of these patients and you haven’t heard yet, please try to bear with us.
“All our teams understand how important it is to you to receive your vaccination as soon as possible. We will book you in as soon as we can over the coming weeks.
“In terms of prioritisation, in the absence of any other instructions we are using a combination of clinical judgement and working by age (oldest to youngest), calling in eligible members of the same household at the same time to avoid duplicate journeys.”
The centre said any spare vaccines that come available at short notice, such as if someone cancels their appointment, would be allocated to a reserve list and are not offered to anyone who just turns up.
Only the nine practices operating from the centre can add a patient to the list, and the patient must be in one of the groups eligible at that time for a vaccination.
This, the centre says, ensures no vaccines are wasted and maximises opportunities to vaccinate patients.
The centre went on to say that a lack of supply had affected the speed of the rollout, but it was doing all it could to administers the supply it does have as quickly as possible.