‘Operational’ centres won’t open till next month

VACCINATION centres promised as part of Scotland’s drive to inoculate the nation are still not giving jabs despite claims they are ‘operational’.

The Scottish Government said all 1.100 local vaccination centres are now operating, with the sites including 750 GP practices.

But health boards yesterday told the Mail that their vaccination sites, which were within the list of 1,100, will not start issuing the jab until next month.

Officials later clarified that the locations, which include concert halls, vacant shops and other community locations, were only places where ‘vaccine will be given’.

Nicola Sturgeon has also said that only 75 per cent of the GP practices ‘have supply or are in the process of getting supply’.

NHS Fife director of pharmacy Scott Garden said: ‘We anticipate that our local vaccination clinics will become operational on a phased basis, with the first sites opening on February 1.’ NHS Borders said it is currently using only one community venue for staff vaccination in addition to GP sites.

A vaccine supply update sent to medics in Greater Glasgow and Clyde also indicated that vaccine doses for the over-70s and vulnerable people who are shielding may not reach GPs until February.

Scottish Conservative health spokesman Donald Cameron said: ‘This letter raises troubling concerns that the SNP’s vaccine rollout is going too slowly.

‘We need to know if this is only the case in Glasgow or across the whole country.’

Scotland’s national clinical director Professor Jason Leitch said: ‘We have 1,100 available places where vaccine will be given, ranging from the NHS Louisa Jordan, which can do 4,000-5,000 in a day, as you saw on Saturday, to tiny GP practices on Barra or the other islands which have very small numbers.

‘Vaccines will be available for all [vaccination centres] to get all the over-80s done within the timescale we have said, and then the over-75s. They will all just have to be a little more patient.’