Health chiefs insist Hartlepool patients do no have to travel to York or Newcastle after letter causes 'confusion'

Hartlepool’s Labour MP Mike Hill wrote to Health Secretary Matt Hancock after constituents said they were told to travel to one of the mass vaccination centres.

Today, the NHS has issued an explanation and said immunisations are still being offered in the town.

An NHS Tees Valley Clinical Commissioning Group spokesperson said: “The NHS has opened a number of large-scale designated mass vaccination sites.

“Invitations to book an appointment are being sent by NHS England to people in the relevant priority groups who have not yet been vaccinated and live up to 45 minutes’ drive from one of these centres.

“The letter that is sent out centrally invites people to book their Covid-19 vaccination but if they would prefer to have their vaccination locally, then they can choose to wait until they are contacted by their local GP service for an invitation to a locally designated site.

“We understand this may have caused some confusion and the national booking letter now clearly expresses the choice to patients and that they should ignore the letter if they would prefer to be vaccinated via local GP services.

“Vaccine supplies in Hartlepool have been consistent and we have not seen any drop in supply of vaccine to our three designated Primary Care Network sites.”

They added sites are getting a weekly supply but a choice of local sites, mass vaccination and pharmacies are needed to meet the demand to cover the one to four priority groups by mid-February.

Mr Hill said he was pleased the CCG had issued a clarification and said the confusion could have been avoided.

He and added: “Their admission that the system could cause confusion is welcome, as are the changes which have been made to the national booking letter.

"The important thing is for Hartlepool people to recognise the national website gives them a choice, that they are not compelled to travel and that local vaccinations will be available to them at some point in the near future.

"Saying that it is clear to me that there have been some issues around supplies over the last week in particular and I hope the situation has now been rectified.”

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