Shropshire Council to support COVID-19 booster vaccination drive

Shropshire Council says it is ready to support the national drive to offer every eligible adult a COVID-19 booster vaccination by the New Year to help stop the spread of the more infectious Omicron virus variant.

This will see the public sector almost trebling capacity for boosters, to a similar level it was at the height of the vaccination rollout programme in March 2021.

Around 160,000 people in Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin will need booster jabs in under three weeks over the Christmas and New Year holiday period.

Details of walk-in clinics in Shropshire where you can get booster jabs and vaccinations are here.

Shropshire Council is already proving support for the vaccination booster programme, including:

• A special transport offer for people, particularly those who are most vulnerable, who cannot get to their booster appointment
• Later this week it will be increasing opening times at its walk-in vaccination facility in the Darwin Centre in Shrewsbury and open this seven days a week
• Providing a COVID-19 vaccination helpline to help target those who are most vulnerable and help them get their booster jabs
• Our 5 Ways to Winter Wellness campaign aimed at keeping people physically and mentally well this winter.

The council will also be working with the NHS to pinpoint areas where the need for boosters is greatest and targeting efforts at these locations, possibly with pop-up vaccination clinics, in addition to those already in place. As soon as these are known they will be published on our website and social media.

The council is also helping to distribute Lateral Flow Tests to the community from its facilities across Shropshire, and is running a special COVID-19 Helpline 0345 678 9012 for those struggling or in hardship because of the pandemic.

To support the vaccination effort, the council says that some services may be temporarily suspended to help redeploy staff and ensure essential key services are not affected by staff illness or self-isolation.

Rachel Robinson, Shropshire Council’s director of public health, said:

“The council is ready to support the NHS however it can, and to be there to help ensure we keep people in Shropshire healthy, and do all we can to support businesses and make our county a great place to be.

“We expect details of more ways we can support the vaccination booster programme in the next few days. It will require another great effort by our staff and our partners, who have worked tirelessly through the pandemic. We have done it before and are ready to do so again.

“There may be an impact on some council services as we redeploy people onto this priority, but we hope that the public will appreciate why and that this is the right thing to do.”

“We will keep everyone updated via the council’s website and social media.”