Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what preparations the Government is making with GPs for the distribution of a covid-19 vaccine.

The BMA General Practitioners Committee in England agreed with NHS England and NHS Improvement the general practice COVID-19 vaccination service, which was commissioned in line with agreed national terms and conditions as an Enhanced Service. GP Practices working within Primary Care Network groupings were invited to nominate by Tuesday 18 November a site to be designated and approved for administering COVID-19 vaccinations. The ES specification was published on 1 December. Practices were asked to opt into the ES by the end of the 7 December.

NHSE&I wrote to practices on 4 December, giving 10 days’ notice to prepare Primary Care Network groupings who had opted into vaccine delivery to be ready to roll out the vaccines from the week commencing 14 December, under the new Enhanced Service.

Practices in more than a hundred parts of England took delivery of the COVID-19 vaccine on 14 December, with hundreds of other sites starting to vaccinate patients in December. The sites are located in every region of England and will each deliver 975 doses of the vaccine to patients in their first week of vaccinating. Patients will be invited to return three weeks later for their second dose.