NHS finally announces city-centre vaccine site
Leisure centre to be used for Covid-19 jab rollout
NHS leaders said they had listened to residents’ concerns as they announced a new vaccination site was expected to open in Chichester city centre this month.
The new clinic will be located at Westgate Leisure Centre and will operate in addition to other sites – including at the Selsey Medical Centre and Tangmere Village Hall.
For weeks, residents in Chichester have been calling for a vaccination hub to be opened in the city centre, which they said would be more easily accessible to many people.
But local NHS leaders said that, while a number of venues had been considered, none were suitable.
They previously confirmed a central site was being looked at once again – and this has now been confirmed as the Westgate Centre.
A spokesman for the Sussex Covid-19 Vaccination Programme said: “We have listened to local people over recent weeks and we are working to finalise the operational detail of a city centre site which will enable us to vaccinate more people more quickly as we move down the priority groups.”
Councillor Eileen Lintill, leader of Chichester District Council, said it was ‘wonderful’ that the leisure centre had been chosen.
“We are really proud that it is being used for this vital purpose, which will literally save lives and help us to take the first steps back to normality,” she said.
“We are really grateful to our NHS colleagues for listening to our local residents and providing a city centre vaccination site.”
MP Gillian Keegan said she had been working closely with the NHS team to develop the city centre site.
She added: “I am very grateful to the whole team who have worked tirelessly to find an appropriate site to fulfil this need and all the frontline staff who are doing an incredible job vaccinating the most vulnerable in our society, and eventually everybody, against this virus.”
Staff are on course to have offered jabs to everyone in the top four priority cohorts in the Chichester district by mid-February, in line with the national target.
“The size and speed of the roll-out of the vaccination programme has been a phenomenal achievement so far and it is fantastic that we are now close to have vaccinated everyone in the first eligible priority groups across the Chichester district,” the spokesman said.
The Selsey Medical Centre staff are now making ‘every effort’ to book in any remaining patients in the top four priority groups who have yet to be vaccinated.
These patients should email ipc.covidcatchupchichester@ nhs.net