[Bolin]

I posted this on another thread, hope it is useful.

Some info might be helpful:

There are 3 types of places offering vaccines:

Hospital Hubs - main hospitals, not very small 'cottage' hospitals from what I gather.

Local Vaccination Service - GP practice run, sometime groups of GP practices will run theirs together from one larger surgery, or maybe even from a larger site such as a concert hall etc. Some pharmacies are in this category.

Vaccination Centres - i.e. sports ground, conference centres, cathedrals etc. This may include pharmacies as well - our local tiny pharmacy has set up as a vaccination centre in a local hall.

All vaccinations are by appointment only. You may be contacted in different ways. For Vaccination Centres you will receive a letter with links to the national booking system, which is online or by calling 119. You will receive a letter when you are in an eligible cohort I.e. over 80s, over 75s, extremely clinically vulnerable, when it is that cohort's turn to be vaccinated, AND you live within a 45 minute drive of a vaccination centre. For Local Vaccination Services you will be contacted via your GP surgery or someone/an organisation acting on their behalf. This could be by letter, telephone or text. Not sure about email. Hospital Hubs are mainly offering the jab to health and social care workers and possibly patients too. Health and social care workers should have involvement from employers to identify them and Local Authorities are supposed to play a role in this too - more info in docs online.

There may be slight oddities in the system - one example is my GP surgery, which is running the jabs with the local pharmacy in a nearby hall. They will not contact their patients directly to offer the jab, but instead patients will get the standard letter to book a Vaccination Centre, and use that to book the local pharmacy rollout at the hall. Problem there is that people living miles away can also book at the hall, leaving no priority for locals. In response the GP surgery is now texting patients when new slots are available to be booked at the hall via the national booking system so basically give a heads up that spaces are available, but others living further away can still book in there.

Vaccination Centres may 'disappear' from the national booking system if all their current slots are booked up, and then 'reappear' when new slots are available. Slots appear to be created when VCs are allocated doses of vaccine.

There are lots of documents relating to the rollout online on gov.uk, have a search.

Hope this helps - if anyone has more useful info then please share.