Sheffield councillors tweet about organisation of Covid vaccination centre at Crucible Theatre after people are turned away

Over-18s were invited to get their first dose of the Pfizer vaccine at a drop-in clinic at the Crucible in Sheffield on Saturday, June 12.

Health bosses said it was "amazing" to see the response from young people but asked anyone who had been planning to attend the walk-in clinic not to attend after it quickly reached capacity.

NHS Sheffield Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG), which is running the centre, tweeted at 8.56 am today: “Amazing to see so many people at the Crucible Theatre for our drop-in Covid vaccination clinic. If you were planning on coming, do not as we have reached our limit.

One person said there were over 1500 people in the queue to get their vaccine.

Councillors in the city have now questioned the organisation of the clinic after large numbers of people attended and had to queue for hours.

Cllr Joe Otten tweeted: “Hi @felly500 I'm concerned that hundreds/thousands of young people were encouraged to travel, probably on the bus, to the Crucible for vaccination this morning, only for most to wait in huge queues and then be turned away.

“Couldn't demand have been predicted better than this?”

Replying to the Lib Dem councillor’s tweet, Cllr Ben Miskell said: “I’d agree with you Joe. @NHSSheffieldCCG pushed out the message on social media & the inevitable demand was entirely predictable. There also seems to have been a lack of thinking about how to manage the queue, which isn’t great in a pandemic. What happened Sheffield CCG?”

The Star has approached Sheffield CCG for a comment.