Frequently asked questions about the Coronavirus (COVID-19) vaccine

The NHS has a clear vaccine delivery plan and will contact you when it's your turn to get the vaccine as quickly and easily as possible.  

The Government will continue to follow the scientific advice and vaccinate those most at risk first, and those who work closest with them - care home residents and staff, followed by people over 80 and health and social care workers, then other people in order of age and risk. You can find the full prioritisation list here. 

 Do not contact the NHS first, they will contact you.

Vaccines are now safer than ever before. Any vaccine must first go through the usual rigorous testing and development process and be shown to strict standards of safety, quality and effectiveness before it can be deployed.

Vaccines teach your immune system how to create antibodies that protect you from diseases. It's much safer for your immune system to learn this through vaccination than by catching the diseases and treating them. Once a vaccine has trained your immune system to know how to fight a disease, it can often protect you for many years.

Like all medicines, vaccines can cause side effects. Most of these are mild and short-term, and not everyone gets them.

You should not have the vaccine if you've ever had a serious allergic reaction to:

• a previous vaccine
• a previous dose of the same COVID-19 vaccine
• some medicines, household products or cosmetics

Serious allergic reactions are rare. If you do have a reaction to the vaccine, it usually happens in minutes. Staff giving the vaccine are trained to deal with allergic reactions and treat them immediately.

It’s not alphabetical, there are a couple of ways.  The GP practice has a list of all their patients who are registered with them. We are using different methods of contacting patients. We have a system called accuBook whereby we send a text message to the patient who is invited to either log onto a website or to click the link to organise their appointment. For those patients who don’t have a mobile phone or a Smart mobile phone we are contacting them via a call centre that we have set up. How practices upload their lists will be different amongst different practices, we have 38 different practices across the city. 

At the moment, the vaccines are coming into the city and they go directly to specific sites and that’s something we don’t have any control over so there will be different sites putting on clinics at different times. Some practices are uploading their lists slightly quicker than others but what we will say is that all patients will be invited within a couple of weeks of each other within the same household. It’s difficult to give an exact answer as every practice will do it slightly differently but it’s not alphabetical. It depends on how the practice has everyone recorded on their system. 

We are inviting in terms of the cohort, so over 80’s invited first then over 75’s, then over 70’s then clinically extremely vulnerable. After that 65-69 year olds and then those patients on that high risk group. It is fair to all.

1. Local hospital services - you might be contacted either to have the vaccine as an inpatient or at an outpatient appointment.
2. Local GP services - practices in your area are working together to contact and offer the vaccine to as many people as possible. This may be at a different surgery than you usually go to, or at a venue that has been set up specially to deliver vaccines. 
3. Through your care home - GPs and their teams are also arranging to vaccinate care home residents directly, in their homes.
4. A letter from the NHS Covid-19 Vaccination Booking Service to book online or by phone. Booking through this service will give you the option of having the vaccine at a special Vaccination Centre, or potentially a community pharmacy depending on whether these are available locally.

There's no evidence the COVID-19 vaccine is unsafe if you're pregnant. But more evidence is needed before you can be routinely offered the vaccine.

Click here to find out more.

With the roll-out of vaccines now firmly underway, there are many questions around who will be prioritised and when. In December 2020 the vaccination programme started, with those considered most at risk being contacted first including those aged over 80, those living in care homes, and frontline health and social care staff.

Where do I stand?

The JCVI (Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation) has included unpaid carers on the vaccination priority list (UK wide) group 6.  Many carers will be in a group higher up the list due to age if they are over 65. You can find the list of groups here.

For more further help and support about COVID information and Carers please visit Carers UK Covid vaccine - FAQs webpage

Based on current information about the first COVID-19 vaccines being deployed, scheduling should ideally be separated by an interval of at least 7 days to avoid incorrect attribution of potential adverse events.

For more information please visit gov.uk COVID-19: the green book, chapter 14a.

You will receive your second dose 12 weeks after the first, regardless of the vaccine type. The second dose completes the course and is important for longer term protection. 

If you have had your first jab already through a hospital or GP services, the local NHS will contact you about getting your second.

More locations will become available in the coming weeks so you could try again later.

Alternatively, you can choose to wait until your local GP service invites you for the vaccine.

If you are housebound and unable to leave the house to travel to any appointment, and cannot arrange for someone to help you, your local NHS services will be in contact with you.

If you already have a vaccination booked through your GP please ignore the letter – there is nothing you need to do.

If you have received a letter from the national booking centre inviting you to book your Covid-19 vaccination you can do this online or on the phone using the details on the first page of the letter.

You will need your name, date of birth and NHS number to book. 

At the time of booking you will be asked to book your first vaccination and your follow up vaccination for 11 to 12 weeks’ time. 

No, please do not contact your GP surgery. They cannot help you to book into the Vaccination Centre.

Please use the details in the letter to book your appointment directly. 

Standard opening times for vaccination centres will be 8am – 8pm, seven days a week.

Yes the vaccination centres are safe, staff at these sites will wear appropriate PPE and there will be social distancing and cleaning measures in place to keep everyone safe.

The telephone booking service will be open 16 hours a day (from 7am until 11pm), seven days a week. People will also be able to book online 24/7.

At times, due to high demand, the phone line will get very busy, which may mean waiting on the line for a while or calling back later. You can alternatively book online.

The NHS is inviting eligible people in a phased basis as supplies of the vaccine allow. It is important that you wait for your letter from the NHS, and you will not be able to book without one. 

If you have received a letter and live with someone who is also eligible but has not received a letter, it is likely that theirs will follow shortly. If you like you can wait and book at the same time.