Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what criteria his Department is using to allocate covid-19 vaccines to GP surgeries in (a) South Shields and (b) the rest of the country.
General practices are delivering COVID-19 vaccinations at scale, coming together in Primary Care Network (PCN) groupings to deliver the vaccine as local vaccination services. Over 1,000 PCN-led local vaccination service sites are now offering the vaccine across England.
NHS England and NHS Improvement are aligning the supply of the vaccine with the number of people in the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation priority cohorts yet to receive their vaccination, to ensure an equitable distribution across England. This means the frequency and quantity of vaccine delivered may vary between local vaccination services in line with local need. Each week, all available vaccine is allocated, so local vaccination services are supplied with the vaccine as soon as it is available.