Patients told NOT to turn up to Sheffield hospitals for vaccine without appointments

The plea from hospitals for patients to wait to be contacted about the vaccine, comes after a 90-year-old turned up to a Newcastle hospital expecting to receive the jab having watched the news.

A spokeswoman from Newcastle Hospitals NHS Trust said people will be contacted when it is their turn to be vaccinated.

Sheffield’s first ‘vaccination hub’ has been opened at the Northern General Hospital today (Tuesday, December 8) as the first high-risk people are receiving the Pfizer/BioNTech jab.

A total of 50 NHS hubs, including Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, which also runs the Royal Hallamshire, have been selected to administer the new vaccine after the jab was formally approved by regulators last week.

The trust has said the hospital will be ‘predominantly’ vaccinating patients aged over 80 who were already due to come in for appointments this week in the first instance, alongside a ‘small number’ of staff.

Professor Stephen Powis, of NHS England, announced that vaccinations for care home residents will start before Christmas.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme it will happen “within the next few weeks” but the process is “complicated”.

“We do have to split those boxes (of vaccines) out to get them out to care homes. We have to do that safely.”, Professor Powis added.

“This is a fragile vaccine, it’s a new sort of vaccine, so we have to treat it with care.”

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