Vaccine supply used up in four of Sunderland's six vaccine centres as teams await deliveries

Vaccine clinics are still running at two centres in the city; Riverview Health Centre and Millfield Medical Centre this week, while Bunnyhill Primary Care Centre, Houghton Primary care Centre, Washington Primary Care Centre and Grindon Lane Primary Care Centre are all awaiting deliveries.

There has been no disruption to appointments, the CCG has confirmed and all appointments are planned in accordance with deliveries.

Deliveries of vaccine doses at the four centres are expected later this week and next week.

The CCG were unable to say which sites ran out of vaccine when, or how many days vaccine clinics were not carried out at centres while they awaited deliveries.

However a leading GP posted on Twitter on Sunday about the issue and said that teams who were ready to treat 19,000 people in coming days, had no sign of supplies to the first four centres it set up.

Health professionals have been working at a 'remarkable pace' in the city, health bosses have said and last week a meeting heard that jabs had been given to about two thirds of the city’s care home workers and all care home residents were expected to have received a first dose by the end of last week.

Sunderland City Council’s Health and Wellbeing Scrutiny Committee was told on January 6 that clinics would possibly have to close for part of the week, once the current supply ran out.

“Vaccination centres can only be open if we have vaccines,” David Chandler, deputy chief officer and chief financial officer at Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) told the meeting.

“We’ve got staff ready to vaccinate, but any centre might only get enough vaccines to vaccinate three days out of seven.

“You’re as likely to walk past a vaccine centre and see it closed as open because we haven’t got as much vaccine as we would like.”

And on Wednesday January 13 Mr Chandler said that some sites would need to wait for deliveries before they can restart vaccinating people.

He said: “Vaccination schedules are dependent on the availability and delivery of doses. Healthcare professionals are working at a remarkable pace to administer the vaccine to as many people as possible and occasionally this will mean that some sites will need to wait for further deliveries before they can resume again.

“All of our vaccination sites have been active within this last week and one final site is going live on Thursday 14. Further supplies are being delivered this week and next week, so that vaccinations in Sunderland can continue.”

This comes a figures reveal that the North East and Yorkshire has given first doses of the vaccine to 370,694 people and second doses of the vaccine to 51,860.

By January 10 204,140 over 80s in the North East and Yorkshire had been given the first dose and 50,125 had received their second dose.

The North East in Yorkshire has the highest rate of vaccinations per 100,000 people in England.

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