The supermarket opened its first vaccination hub in its Cape Hill store, in Smethwick. The plan is to administer 240 coronavirus jabs to priority groups selected by the NHS. Are you on the list? Based in the West Midlands, ASDA has transformed its George clothing department to accommodate the vaccination centre. The site will be operational every day from 8am to 8pm in the hopes of helping the government to achieve its ambitious vaccination aims.
Qualified pharmacists will deliver the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to the priority groups already identified by the NHS, said PharmaTimes.
The chief executive officer and president of Asda, Roger Burnley, commented on the monumental milestone.
“We are incredibly proud to provide this service and are keen to do all we can to help the NHS and government accelerate the roll-out of the vaccination programme,” he said
“We have an extensive nationwide logistics network that could support the storage and distribution of the vaccine.
“Our highly-trained pharmacy colleagues are experienced in delivering large vaccination programmes, having recently provided nearly 200,000 flu jabs to members of the public.”
The UK government’s ambition is to vaccinate “tens of millions of people” by spring 2021.
To help achieve this aim, the goal is for everybody to be within 10 miles of a vaccination centre by the end of January.
Mobile vaccination teams will be able to reach people in highly rural areas.