No Covid-19 jabs to be delivered at four Sunderland vaccination centres for a week due to supply issues

Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) has said its teams are ready to treat 19,000 patients in coming days, but that it faces difficulties due to a lack of supply.

GP Dr Fadi Khalil, vice chairman of the CCG, said: "Four primary care network vaccination sites will NOT be getting any vaccines this week.

"As soon as we get the vaccines we will deliver again at pace.

"On a positive note we have vaccinated 90% of our older care home residents.”

His insight into the difficulties being faced by local teams as they roll out the programme – the biggest immunisation campaign in the NHS’s history – came via Tweets during a busy weekend for the vaccinators and support staff.

He also said Wearside’s sites “continue to vaccinate and provide all the deliveries we can possibly get” and said the efforts at Bunnyhill had run smoothly during the last few days, but said “unfortunately no confirmed deliveries going forward.”

The Echo has contacted the CCG for further details about the issues.

There are expected to be six initial sites across the city, with Grindon Lane Primary Care Centre also among them, but the details of other locations have not yet been shared publicly by the NHS.

The difficulties follow on from additional work created when the Government shifted the time frame for the second follow up jab to be given from 21 days up to 12 weeks, leaving the city’s GP surgeries facing the task of cancelling and reorganise thousands of appointments.

People have been urged not to call their surgery to try and book an appointment, with patients being told they will be contacted when their time and date is due to be arranged.

Today, Monday, January 11, saw the launch of a series of mass vaccination centres, with the first in the North East launching at the Centre for Life in Newcastle.

A total of 2.33 million Covid-19 vaccinations had taken place in England up to January 10, according to provisional figures published by NHS England – local figures have not been made available.

Of this number, 1.96 million were the first dose of the vaccine and 374,000 were the second dose.

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