Two new vaccination centres announced for Devon
People will start getting the jabs on Tuesday (26 January)
Two new large-scale vaccination centres are opening in Devon on Tuesday (26 January).
The Mayflower Grandstand at Plymouth Argyle Football Club’s Home Park Stadium, and exhibition and event venue Westpoint Exeter will be hosting their first booked appointments to people aged 80 and above.
They will mean thousands more vaccinations will be given every week in Devon and provide local people have a wider choice of options when they receive their invitation for an appointment.
Anyone who cannot or does not want to travel to one of the sites can be vaccinated by their local GP service.
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.
Darryn Allcorn, Lead Chief Nurse for Devon and Chief Nurse at Devon Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), said:
"This is great news for people in Devon. These two new sites will deliver thousands of vaccinations each week and everyone is working tirelessly to get the sites ready. I’d like to thank them for everything they have done and continue to do."
The Home Park site will be managed by University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust, which runs the city’s Derriford Hospital.
Plymouth Argyle FC has been supporting the NHS since the beginning of the pandemic, with the Mayflower Grandstand temporarily hosting health services such as phlebotomy and antenatal services to relieve pressure on Derriford.
Sue Wilkins, Director of Mass Vaccination and Testing for University Hospitals Plymouth NHS Trust said:
"We are hugely grateful to everyone who has enabled us to get to this point, including our hosts at Plymouth Argyle.
"Please wait until you receive a letter before attending the site; this will happen for everyone who has not had a vaccination at another venue in due course. When you receive a letter it will give you the choice of coming to the centre for your vaccination and explain how to book."
Plymouth City Council is supporting the project, identifying a site with plenty of parking and arranging signage, marshals, security support and traffic management.
In response to the news of a site in Exeter, Steve Brown, Director of Public Health at Devon County Council, said:
"We’re very proud to be part of this key project. Vaccination is the way of out lockdown and the pandemic and the new centre in Exeter will give us more capacity to vaccinate local people in the weeks and months to come."
The site was established by the NHS with support from a team of volunteers from Network Rail, whose volunteers also pitched in to help set up the NHS Nightingale Hospital in Exeter last year.