53 hospitals to be first hubs for jabs
VACCINATIONS are expected to start on Tuesday for over 80s, care home staff and some at- risk NHS workers.
Hospital bosses are now working to swiftly identify which patients and staff should be given the Pfizer/ BioNTech jab first.
It has been revealed that 53 hospital hubs are being set up, which can all store the vaccine at - 70C.
But although care home residents and staff were meant to be first in line, challenges with storage need to be ironed out first.
NHS Providers chief executive Chris Hopson said: “Over the next few days, the 53 hospitals will be doing the following three things.
“First, they will be working with local care homes and local authorities to maximise the number of care home carers and workers coming in for vaccination.
“Second, hospitals will identify as many patients over 80 as possible that they can vaccinate. Obvious candidates would be those attending outpatient appointments and receiving inpatient treatment. Third, they’ll see if they can vaccinate residents of care homes. This won’t be easy.”
Yesterday refrigerated trucks carrying the vaccine left the Pfizer base in Belgium to go to the UK.
UK hospitals have not been told how many doses
they will receive. Mr Hopson said they would work on the basis that the first 800,000 “could be the only batch we receive for some time”. Patients will be vaccinated once they receive a required second jab, three weeks after they are given the first.