COVID-19 national vaccination programme

Vaccination sites

The following sites are currently live:

Our vaccination sites will be delivering vaccinations to those in the priority groups as per JCVI guidance.

We have also started to vaccinate care home residents and staff within their own care homes in the area. 

The national COVID-19 vaccination booking service only shows sites where appointments are currently available. This means you will not see local sites on the national booking service website where they are fully booked for the coming days.

If you cannot select a large scale vaccination site near you when you access the national booking service, you can either choose to book at an alternative location which still has appointments available, or try again later in the day to see if appointments at a site that is nearer to you have become available.

You can find the full list of large scale vaccination sites in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough below:

• City Care Centre in Peterborough
• Grafton Centre in Cambridge
• Oak Tree Centre in Huntingdon
• Horesefair Shopping Centre in Wisbech
• Chesterton Indoor Bowls Club in Cambridge
• East of England Arena and Events Centre in Peterborough
• Priory Centre in St Neots

Not at this moment in time, unless they are in one of the eligible groups and also registered at the same practice as you (if the booking is via your local GP). We are calling patients individually to book them in. It is important we vaccinate those at greatest risk from Covid-19 first.

If you are aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and have not yet received your vaccine, but would like to be vaccinated, you can now book via www.nhs.uk/covid-vaccination or by calling 119. If you are not aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable please wait to be invited to book your appointment.

We are asking patients to come to their appointment on their own unless they are in a wheelchair, but friends or relatives are more than welcome to wait in the car park if they have driven together. We would recommend only travelling or asking for support from someone within your household or support bubble in line with current COVID-19 guidance.

If you need assistance from a carer or relative to walk to and through the vaccination centre, they are also welcome to accompany you wearing a face covering.

Both the Pfizer/BioNTech and Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccines are now available. Both vaccines have been shown to be safe and offer high levels of protection, and have been given regulatory approval by the MHRA. 

The NHS is currently offering the COVID-19 vaccine to people most at risk from coronavirus.

In England, the vaccine is being offered in some hospitals and pharmacies, at local vaccination centres run by GPs and at larger vaccination centres. More centres are opening all the time.

It's now being given to:

• people aged 64 and over
• people eligible for Carer's Allowance
• people who are at high risk from coronavirus (clinically extremely vulnerable)
• people who are at moderate risk from coronavirus (clinically vulnerable)
• people who live or work in care homes
• health and social care workers

The order in which people are offered the vaccine is based on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).

On 26 February the Government confirmed the prioritisation for phase 2 of the COVID-19 vaccination delivery programme, based on advice from the JCVI. During phase 2 priority will be given in the following order:

• All those aged 40-49
• All those aged 30-39
• All those aged 18-29

If you are aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and have not yet received your vaccine, but would like to be vaccinated, please book now via www.nhs.uk/covid-vaccination or by calling 119. If you are not aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable please wait to be invited to book your appointment.

The MHRA have said these vaccines are highly effective, but to get full protection people need to come back for the second dose – this is really important.  

To ensure as many people are vaccinated as quickly as possible, the Department for Health and Social Care now advise that the second dose of both the OxfordAstraZeneca and the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine should be scheduled up to 12 weeks (84 days) apart.

Full protection kicks in around a week or two after that second dose, which is why it’s also important that when you do get invited, you act on that and get yourself booked in as soon as possible. Even those who have received a vaccine still need to follow social distancing and other guidance

The Joint Committee for Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has published its advice advice on priority groups for COVID-19 vaccination.

At the moment, you will receive a phone call, letter or a text message from the NHS asking you to come for a vaccine at a local vaccination service, a pharmacy vaccination site, a large scale vaccination site or a hospital hub. 

If you are aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable and have not yet received your vaccine, but would like to be vaccinated, you can now book online via www.nhs.uk/covid-vaccination or by calling 119. 

If you are not aged 64 or over, eligible for Carer's Allowance, or Clinically Extremely Vulnerable please wait to be invited to book your appointment. 

In the next phase of the vaccine roll out, GP led vaccination sites will focus initially on the clinically vulnerable from cohort 6. Cohorts are the way that people are prioritised to receive their COVID-19 vaccination.

JCVI priority Cohort 6 includes ‘all individuals aged 16 years to 65 years with underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality’.

This also includes those who are in receipt of a carer’s allowance, or those who are the sole or primary carer of an elderly or disabled person who is at increased risk of COVID-19 mortality and therefore clinically vulnerable.

Each clinical condition within cohort 6 has been mapped to clinical codes (called SNOMED codes) available within patient medical records. This means that GP practices can quickly identify eligible patients and invite them to have their vaccination.

Cohort 6 Clinical risk groups who should receive COVID-19 immunisation are further defined in Green Book Chapter 14a and include:

• chronic respiratory disease, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), cystic fibrosis and severe asthma
• chronic heart disease (and vascular disease)
• chronic kidney disease
• chronic liver disease
• chronic neurological disease including epilepsy
• Down’s syndrome
• severe and profound learning disability
• diabetes
• solid organ, bone marrow and stem cell transplant recipients
• people with specific cancers
• immunosuppression due to disease or treatment
• asplenia and splenic dysfunction
• morbid obesity
• severe mental illness
• Younger adults in long-stay in-patient, nursing and residential care settings
• Adult carers (those who are in receipt of a carer’s allowance, or those who are the sole or primary carer of an elderly or disabled person who is at increased risk of COVID-19 mortality and therefore clinically vulnerable.)

The above list of conditions is not exhaustive. A hospital clinician or GP can also add a patient to the list, based on their clinical judgement, because they consider them to be at very high risk of serious illness from COVID-19.

We would ask that you consider asking a member of your household or support bubble to drive you to the appointment if you think they may be able to help in the first instance, as our volunteer driver team will have limited capacity. Car sharing with someone outside your household or support bubble is only permitted in limited circumstances during the national lockdown. You can find out more about the rules on car sharing here.

If you do need help from the Local Authority’s voluntary travel support service, you can access this service online via http://bit.ly/transportsupport. You can also call them between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday on 0345 045 5219 to book your transport. 

The MHRA have said these vaccines are highly effective, but to get full protection people need to come back for the second dose – this is really important.  

To ensure as many people are vaccinated as quickly as possible, the Department for Health and Social Care now advise that the second dose of both the OxfordAstraZeneca and the Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine should be scheduled up to 12 weeks apart.

If you use the national booking service to arrange your vaccine, you will be prompted when you book to schedule in both your first and your second dose. You need to have both doses of the vaccine at the same location.

If you received your first vaccine at a local vaccination service (run by GP practices) or a hospital hub, you will be contacted by the NHS in due course to arrange your second vaccination appointment. Your second vaccination appointment will take place at the same location where you had your first vaccination.

You cannot catch COVID-19 from the vaccine but it is possible to have caught COVID-19 and not realise you have the symptoms until after your vaccination appointment. 

The most important symptoms of COVID-19 are recent onset of any of the following: 

• a new continuous cough 
• a high temperature 
• a loss of, or change in your normal sense of taste or smell 

If you have the symptoms above, stay at home and arrange to have a test. 

Vaccines are the most effective way to prevent infectious diseases.

To find out more about vaccines watch this video of Professor Jonathan Van-Tam, the Government's Deputy Chief Medical Officer. 

Watch this video of scientists leading the development of a COVID-19 vaccine at the University of Oxford explain how they assess safety at each stage of the process. 

There is no material of animal origin in either vaccine. All ingredients are published in healthcare information on the MHRA’s website.

For the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine information is available online. 

For the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine information is available online.

Getting vaccinated means protecting yourself from the virus so you can be there for your family, friends and patients or residents. If you are invited to have your vaccine, please accept the invitation to help protect yourself against COVID-19.

If you are a frontline health or social care worker, you will be contacted via your employer to book your vaccination appointment when it is your time to book in. Please do not contact the NHS to book a vaccine unless you have been invited to do so.

You can find out more information about the Covid-19 vaccination for healthcare workers on the Government website.

In many cases employers will make on-site arrangements in the same way as they do for the annual winter flu vaccination. Alternative and additional arrangements may be put in place for staff who do not work on a particular site or are not on shift at the time the vaccines are delivered. 

The COVID-19 vaccination is now available to all frontline health and social care staff, including staff who work at independent providers. If you represent an independent health or social care provider, it is important that you support your staff to get vaccinated. Please contact us as soon as possible via capccg.massvacsworkforce@nhs.net to arrange COVID-19 vaccination appointments for your frontline staff. When contacting us it is helpful if you include your profession and employment details in order to speed up the response time. 

Getting vaccinated means protecting yourself from the virus so you can be there for your family, friends and patients, so if you are invited to get vaccinated please accept your invitation. 

Please do not send our Team any Patient Identifiable Data when you contact them to submit your interest. If we require Patient Identifiable Data from you, we will ask for this after you have made contact with us. 

Nationally there will be tens of thousands of people required to vaccinate people at the pace and scale that we need to, which is why as well as the existing NHS workforce recruitment is ongoing.   

In our area, you can find out more about how to apply for various health care professional and support roles on our COVID-19 vaccination teams across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough via Cambridgeshire Community Services (CCS) NHS Trust’s website.

If you’re interested in opportunities available across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, CCS would love to hear from you.  You can find out more by:

• visiting their website - where you can also apply online, or
• contacting the CCS HR Team via ccs.hrteam@nhs.net