NI vaccine roll-out: New mass vaccine centres run by pharmacists under consideration

Pharmacists are in talks with the Department of Health to set up extra mass coronavirus vaccination centres across Northern Ireland, it has emerged.
By Niall Deeney
Published 2nd Mar 2021, 09:03 BST
PACEMAKER BELFAST 04/02/2021 Vaccinations at the Ulster Hospital Dundonald this afternoon. A further 10 people have died in Northern Ireland after contracting coronavirus, the Department of Health has confirmed. Four of those deaths occurred in the 24 hours up to 10am on Thursday and six happened previously. The death toll has now risen to 1,899. Another 412 new Covid cases were also identified in testing. Photo Stephen Davison/Pacemaker PressPACEMAKER BELFAST 04/02/2021 Vaccinations at the Ulster Hospital Dundonald this afternoon. A further 10 people have died in Northern Ireland after contracting coronavirus, the Department of Health has confirmed. Four of those deaths occurred in the 24 hours up to 10am on Thursday and six happened previously. The death toll has now risen to 1,899. Another 412 new Covid cases were also identified in testing. Photo Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Press
PACEMAKER BELFAST 04/02/2021 Vaccinations at the Ulster Hospital Dundonald this afternoon. A further 10 people have died in Northern Ireland after contracting coronavirus, the Department of Health has confirmed. Four of those deaths occurred in the 24 hours up to 10am on Thursday and six happened previously. The death toll has now risen to 1,899. Another 412 new Covid cases were also identified in testing. Photo Stephen Davison/Pacemaker Press

That is one of two options under consideration as the vaccination programme prepares to “accelerate” in the coming weeks as more supplies of vaccine arrive in Northern Ireland.

Another option would see pharmacies offer vaccinations in a similar way to the roll-out of the flu vaccine, which last year involved nearly 350 individual pharmacies.

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Earlier this year, the News Letter and its sister titles across the UK launched a campaign to highlight the role community pharmacies can play in easing pressure on already-stretched health services in making sure everyone can access their jabs.

Now, discussions are ongoing between the Stormont health department and pharmacies across Northern Ireland about the role they can play as the roll-out accelerates.

With more than a third of the adult population in Northern Ireland having already been given at least one dose, another mass vaccination centre is expected to be up-and-running by April.

The SSE Arena in Belfast would become the eighth mass centre here, and the largest one yet.

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Currently, vaccines are being offered through both the mass centres and through GP surgeries.

Gerard Greene, chief executive of Community Pharmacy Northern Ireland, said pharmacies would likely begin offering vaccines in the coming weeks.

“The state of play at the moment is that discussions are ongoing as to how quickly we can get this rolled out through community pharmacy,” he said.

“The stage we’re at is that there are two possible ways in which it’s going to happen.

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“One could be through mass vaccination sites run by community pharmacies — that would be a small number (of sites). A number of pharmacies have expressed an interest in doing that.”

He continued: “The other angle would be for the more traditional way of rolling it out through pharmacies — in the same way that it was done with flu vaccination.

“You might recall that there were approximately, approaching 350 pharmacies out of the 528 community pharmacies that were providing the flu vaccine over the winter, and that was tremendous.”

He added: “I think the health service recognises that community pharmacy has a real role to play in the roll-out of vaccinations.”

Related topics:Department of HealthBelfast