I do not have overall local figures of the numbers of people who have been vaccinated against COVID-19  but I thought constituents might like to see how the overall deployment across the country is going as I do have them.  The Department of Health and Social Care has just announced that over 5.8 million people across the UK have been vaccinated and it has reached three quarters of those who are over 80 years of age. I believe this percentage is probably reflected locally too.

Last week the NHS in England vaccinated 140 people every minute and the UK has now vaccinated nearly four times the number of people per 100 than any other country in Europe. It is now vaccinating at 206 Hospital hubs, 1000 GP-led services, 993 Local Vaccination Services, 17 Mass Vaccination sites. Last week it announced 60 new vaccination sites being rolled out across cinemas and religious places of worship, with a further 32 sites opening across England this coming week (the full list of sites across England can be found at: https://www.england.nhs.uk/coronavirus/hospital-hubs-and-localvaccinati…).

This means that the number of vaccination sites across the UK is now over 2,700, with hundreds more opening soon. Looking ahead, vaccine supplies and scheduled deliveries mean it is on track to offer vaccinations to all those in JCVI priority cohorts 1-4 by 15 February.

The NHS has signed deals for substantial future supply of both vaccines to enable swift vaccination across the UK in the weeks and months ahead.

The Covid-19 vaccination programme is the biggest vaccination programme in NHS history and in the last 3 days the UK has vaccinated more people than France in the entirety of its programme.

That having been said it is absolutely clear that our NHS continues to be under serious pressure and it is vital that we all continue to follow the rules: stay home, save lives, protect the NHS.