Sunderland's Nightingale Hospital officially opens as Covid-19 vaccination centre
The Nightingale Hospital in Sunderland has opened as one of 32 vaccination centres, as the health service continues to accelerate the biggest immunisation programme in its history.
The temporary hospital was built nine months ago to provide additional bed capacity during the first wave of the pandemic.
The first large-scale vaccination centres, which can inuculate thousands of people a week, opened two weeks ago.
Michaela Martin, a health care assistant, recieved her jab at the hospital in Sunderland, after finishing a night shift at Gateshead's Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
She says she feels "proud, happy" and "relieved" to have recieved her vaccine.
People aged 75 and over are being invited to book a vaccination at the centres or one of more than 70 pharmacy services now operating across the country.
If they cannot or do not want to travel to a Vaccination Centre people can wait to be jabbed by a local GP service or hospital hub.
There are more than 1,000 GP services and more than 250 hospital sites now offering vaccinations in England.
The new vaccination centres started by mainly vaccinating health and social care staff before opening to more patients.
More than a million letters have already been sent out inviting people to the 17 vaccination locations in operation, along with some community pharmacy sites.
NHS staff have already delivered more than 5.5 million doses of the vaccine and each centre will be capable of jabbing thousands of people every week depending on supply.
The NHS vaccinated over 140 people every minute last week and hopes to do more people this week as more becomes available.
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.
Appointments are staggered to allow for social distancing and people are urged not to turn up early to avoid queues.
The new vaccine centres will each be capable of delivering thousands of jabs each week but scaling up and down according to vaccine supplies and demand.
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.
Those like care home residents who are unable to travel to vaccine centres, hospitals or GP-led sites are already being jabbed at home.
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