CCGs apologise over short notice closure of vaccine clinic

The local health authority has apologised to patients who had a wasted trip to a walk-in Covid vaccination centre near Melton after it was closed at short notice.
Vaccinations against coronavirus are being stepped up with a number of walk-in clincs set up EMN-210109-120800001Vaccinations against coronavirus are being stepped up with a number of walk-in clincs set up EMN-210109-120800001
Vaccinations against coronavirus are being stepped up with a number of walk-in clincs set up EMN-210109-120800001

Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs) promoted the service last week at St Hilda’s Church, at East Goscote, from Tuesday through to Saturday, for those aged 16 and 17, with no appointment needed.

John Mason travelled the nine miles to the clinic on Thursday with his step-daughter from their Melton home but was disappointed to find it closed for the day.

He said: “I read about the clinic in the Melton Times but when we arrived to get the vaccination there was a notice on the door saying it was closed on Thursday and Friday.

“I looked on the website again later and there was no information saying it was closed.

“I was very unhappy we weren’t warned about it being closed before we set off and I’m sure loads of other people were caught out too.”

A spokesperson for the local CCGs said: “The drop-in vaccine clinic which was planned to take place over six days last week at St Hilda’s Church, East Goscote, had to be closed at short notice for two days due to unforeseen circumstances.

“It is an extremely rare occurrence and unfortunately in this case we were unable to make the changes to our website in time.

“We are very sorry for the obvious inconvenience caused by this.

“There are currently a large number of vaccine clinics taking place across LLR as we are doing all we can to get eligible adults and young people vaccinated as quickly as possible.

“With such a large scale vaccination programme and an often fast-changing situation, we are making every effort to ensure that all our information is correct.”

The CCGs say they will endeavour to update vaccination clinic information online as soon as possible in future - go to https://bit.ly/GetVaxxedLLR for the current list of available centres.