The extra payment comes as Vaccine Centres including Elland
Road football ground, home to Premier League side Leeds,
prepare to open their doors as the NHS Vaccination programme,
the biggest in health service history, continues to accelerate
this week.
The openings will mean there are more than 100 of the
large-scale centres offering the life-saving jab, along with
more than local 1,000 GP services, almost 200 run by High
Street pharmacy services and over 250 hospital hubs.
Other sites due to come online this week include Chesterton
Indoor Bowls Club, Cambridge, East of England Showground,
Peterborough, and Watford Town hall.
People aged 70 and over can arrange to be jabbed at a Vaccine
Centre or pharmacy service or wait to be contacted by their
local GP service or hospital.
GPs are also visiting those who cannot leave home to ensure
that they are also protected.
They will receive an additional £10 on top of the standard
vaccination fee for all every housebound person they vaccinate.
Some GP services working in towns and cities have been
vaccinating more than 100 people with conditions such as
dementia, each day.
GPs and healthcare teams in rural areas have been driving
through heavy snow to protect housebound people in rural areas.
The NHS vaccination programme, the biggest in health service
history, and has seen more than 10 million people jabbed in
England in a matter of weeks.
This means that the NHS is on track to offer all those in the
top four priority groups, decided by the Joint Committee on
Vaccination and Immunisation, a jab by the middle of this
month.
Dr Nikki Kanani, GP and NHS medical director for
primary care, said: “Tremendous efforts have been made
by GPs across the country to ensure we vaccinate those people
who are in the priority cohorts as determined by the JCVI.
“Since the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine was approved for use and
we began administering it on 4 January when Brian Pinker became
the first person to receive the jab, my colleagues across the
country have been prioritising the vaccination programme roll
out which is our biggest chance of beating this virus.
“Please remember the NHS will be in touch with you when it’s
your turn to be vaccinated.”
The £10 per visit additional funding recognises the extra staff
time and complexity of vaccinating the housebound.
The supplement also applies retrospectively to any vaccinations
which have already been administered to people at home.
Priority groups for vaccination in this initial phase were
determined by the government following advice from the Joint
Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) and cover
people aged 70 and over, the clinically extremely vulnerable,
NHS workers and care home residents and staff.
Millions of letters have already been sent out to those
eligible to get their jabs at the major vaccination sites
across the country.
Nobody needs to contact the NHS, as people will be invited when
it is their turn and people cannot get vaccinated by just
turning up.
If anyone has already received a jab since the letter was sent
out or would prefer to wait to be invited to attend a hospital
or GP service, they can simply ignore it.
The NHS made history when Maggie Keenan became the first person
in the world to be protected against coronavirus outside of a
clinical trial when she received the Pfizer vaccine at Coventry
Hospital on the 8 December.
The NHS was also the first health system to deliver the new
Oxford AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine when Brian Pinker, 82,
was jabbed on January 4.
The sites due to open from Monday 8 February are:
- Chesterton Indoor Bowls Club, Cambridge
- East of England Showground, Peterborough
- Hemel Hempstead Hospital, Hemel Hempstead
- Norwich Community Hospital , Norwich
- Old Laws Court, Lowerstoft
- Whitemore Lakes, Lichfield
- Elland Road Stadium, Leeds
- Hull City Hall, Hull
- Alderley Park Conference centre, Macclesfield
- Chester Race Course, Chester
- Bucks University Aylesbury Campus, Aylesbury
- St John Shopping Centre, Preston
- The Mall, Burnley
- The Mill Arts & Events Centre, Rayleigh
- Saxon Court, Milton Keynes
- Watford Town Hall, Watford
- Watling House, Dunstable
- Angel Centre, Tonbridge
