North Wales health board receives nearly 15,000 more vaccine doses and are ‘confident’ of meeting volume and timeline targets

The North Wales Health Board have detailed the amount of new vaccine supply doses they have been given, as they are ‘confident’ of meeting volume and timeline targets.

Teresa Owen, Executive Director of Public Health at Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board explained, “Last week, we saw a significant increase in the number of vaccinations being delivered across North Wales.

A total of 9,654 people in those top priority groups received their first dose as we continued with our planned rollout, and we expect the level of activity to continue to increase as we moved forward and more supplies become available. That means as of the end of last week we have vaccinated 15,852 people”.

“We know initially there was some concern about the supply of vaccine to North Wales in the first few weeks of the programme, but we have always been clear that we will receive our proportion of the vaccine. We have now seen a significant increase in supply and that has been quickly reflected in the overall number of people who have had their vaccine in North Wales.”

All three Mass Vaccination Centres (MVCs) located in Bangor, Llandudno and Deeside are now being used, together with three Hospital Vaccination Centres (HVCs) at Ysbyty Gwynedd, Ysbyty Glan Clwyd and Ysbyty Wrecsam Maelor, Owen said “No other Health Board has commissioned this number of sites and establishing this scale of delivery has been the programme’s objective over the initial weeks”.

“This investment in infrastructure, coupled with the support of GP practices, will enable North Wales to safely delivery significantly higher volumes of vaccinations and confidently provide assurance around meeting any volume and timeline targets.”

The Health Board outlined their plans for January 2021, noting that this week, they are planning to “increase the number of vaccinations they deliver” explaining they have been given 8,576 doses of the Pfizer BioNTech and 6,300 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine to continue vaccinating – a total of 14,876.

• Care home residents and staff
• People aged over 80, including hospital inpatients
• High risk frontline healthcare staff
• Primary care staff
• Welsh Ambulance Service staff
• Social care staff

The Health Board said, “We will continue to deliver the vaccine from our MVCs and HVCs. The aim is to reach as many people as quickly as possible, particularly those group identified as being most vulnerable. The supply of vaccines we receive will also continue to increase in coming weeks to help us do this.”

“We are also starting to deliver the vaccine with the support of our primary care partners, and we will share more information about this in the coming weeks. As previously stated, this is particularly important given the large area we cover in North Wales. This will be supported by working with community pharmacy teams, who can provide further opportunities for people to get their vaccine as close to home as possible.”

By the end of January, we they say they aim to vaccinate 90% of the following groups:

• Care home residents and staff
• 80 years and above
• BCU Frontline staff
• Domiciliary and social care frontline staff
• Other care partner frontline staff

To help keep people up-to-date with the vaccination programme, every household in North Wales will receive a letter this week. This will explain in more detail the list of priority groups that will be vaccinated first, how they will be contacted and other useful information.

Again, they reiterated, “We continue to remind people that they do not need to contact the Health Board or their GP as they will be contacted by telephone or letter when it is their turn to be vaccinated.”