Coronavirus vaccination roll-out: Online booking system for over 65s hit by “high volume” as thousands get booked in

Pensioners were left struggling with a new online system to book coronavirus vaccines this week after the portal was swamped with traffic as soon as it launched.
By Niall Deeney
Published 28th Jan 2021, 12:08 BST
NHS staff prepare to administer a Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. In Northern Ireland, those in the 65-69 year old age category are being offered Pfizer/BioNTech vaccinesNHS staff prepare to administer a Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. In Northern Ireland, those in the 65-69 year old age category are being offered Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines
NHS staff prepare to administer a Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine. In Northern Ireland, those in the 65-69 year old age category are being offered Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines

While over 5,000 people aged between 65 and 69 were able to use the system to get booked in for their vaccination, many faced difficulites as the system was hit by what an IT chief described as “high volume” on Wednesday night.

The public were still being asked to be “patient” as high demand continued on Thursday.

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Northern Ireland’s vaccination programme is now finishing its first phase — healthcare workers, care home residents and staff, and everyone aged over 80 — and moving to the next step in the roll-out.

People aged 70-79 are due to receive appointments to get their vaccination through their local GP, while those aged 65-69 are being asked to book an appointment to visit one of the seven mass vaccination centres run by the individual health Trusts.

A spokesperson for the Department of Health, writing on Twitter, said: “Since going live last night over 5,000 people aged 65-69 have booked their Covid-19 vaccination appointment online.

“Demand for the online system remains high, please be patient.”

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The chief digital information officer for the health service in Northern Ireland, Dan West, also took to Twitter to keep the public up to date about the problems.

Chief Digital Information Officer.

On Wednesday night, shortly after the new booking portal went live, he said: “Some users [are] experiencing issues tonight with the verification on the booking website due to high levels of traffic. Delays in SMS/email [are] causing time-out of verification. We’ve temporarily extended validity of codes and added extra capacity. Bear with us while we get this sorted.”

On Thursday morning, he wrote: “Still high volume hitting the service but issues with verification step and confirmation messages for first appointments now working. Ignore any text saying members of public need to provide HSC staff identification.”

Mr West added: “Please be patient, and keep trying for your appointment.”

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The new online booking site is available at: https://covid-19.hscni.net/

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