Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire West Integrated Care System (BOB).
You will have seen the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Sunday night (12
December) on the latest situation with regards to Omicron and other variants. The alert level
has been raised from three to four.
As a result, we are working across the health and care systems in BOB to significantly
accelerate the vaccination programme by offering vaccines to everyone over the age of 18
before the 31 December. We need to deliver around 600,000 vaccines over the next three
weeks. This is a significant (2.5x) increase in capacity.
We are working with system partners, local authorities, other public organisations and the
voluntary and community sector to support this expansion between now and the new year.
The virus is spreading rapidly – every day counts.
We now have 45 Primary Care Network led sites on board to vaccinate. GP teams are
being asked to clinically prioritise their services to free up maximal capacity to support the
COVID-19 vaccination programme, alongside delivering critical appointments such as
cancer, urgent and emergency care. This might mean that for some people, routine
appointments are postponed as part of the national mission to roll out boosters.
Oxford Health is planning to see if it is possible to almost triple capacity to over 110,000 per
week through mass vaccination sites and temporary clinics. Community pharmacy is also
expanding and we are aiming for over 50,000 a week.
All vaccination appointments will be available to book through the National Booking Service.
Some GP led local vaccination services will also contact patients directly for them
to book vaccination appointments.
This is a constantly changing programme of work and we will keep you updated as
best as we can by providing regular daily updates
Key messages:
• Getting your booster is more important than ever to help increase your defences
against all variants of COVID including Omicron. It will help protect you and those
around you.
• We are aiming to offer a booster vaccine to everyone over 18 who is eligible before
the New Year. This is a significant acceleration of the vaccine programme.
• We are working to offer:
• a booster dose to everyone aged 18 and over by the end of the month (Dec 2021)
• a second dose to people aged 16 and 17-years-old
• a third dose to those with severely weakened immune system
• ensure all children aged 12 to 15 years old have their first dose and second
where eligible
• You can use the National Booking Service to pre-book a booster dose of the vaccine
if it’s been 2 months (61 days) since your 2nd dose. Over 30’s can book now, those
18-year-old and above will be able to book from Wednesday 15 December
• We are working at pace to increase the availability of appointments so that there are
plenty of options for people on the National Booking System. Some GP led local
vaccination services will also contact patients directly for them to book appointments.
• Please do not attend a vaccination service without an appointment unless it is a
specified walk-in clinic, patients who do not have an appointment will be turned
aware as priority will go to those who have booked.
• We are working to increase the availability of appointments so that there are plenty of
options for people to access a COVID-19 booster vaccine. Many of our GP led local
vaccination services will re-open and contact patients directly for them to book
appointments. Please do not contact your GP to book an appointment