The vaccination site will continue at North Devon Leisure Centre in Barnstaple, but the running of the site will be taken on by Northern Devon Healthcare Trust and bookings can be made through the National Booking Service – not the GP practice.
Subject to approval by NHS England and NHS Improvement, it is expected that the Leisure Centre will be available to book for 1st dose appointments on the National Booking Service for people in the eligible groups from early May.
For a period, the site will be shared with GP teams as they finish second doses to people in groups 1-9.
Andrea Bell, deputy chief nurse at Northern Devon Healthcare NHS Trust, said: “Our team has delivered over 16,000 vaccinations at our clinics for health and social care workers at North Devon District Hospital. Now that those clinics have come to an end, we’re delighted that we can move on to support vaccinating local people in cohorts 10-12, once eligible, at the Leisure Centre in Barnstaple.
“Our vaccinators, admin team and volunteers are all looking forward to supporting the next stage of the vaccination programme so that our community in Northern Devon gets the best available protection from coronavirus.
“Once you are eligible for vaccination, please make your booking through the National Booking Service from early May. We look forward to seeing you.”
A spokesperson for the 14 GP practices who have been running the vaccination centre at Barnstaple Leisure Centre said: “We have successfully vaccinated over 50,000 people and we are now focusing on the second doses for this group. We have been pleased to be involved with the national programme, vaccinating the highest risk patients, however we are now handing over the running of the vaccination programme for cohorts 10-12 (those aged 18-49 years old) and we are working with the hospital for a smooth transition.”
The National Booking Service currently offers appointments at Arnold’s Pharmacy in Westward Ho! and will soon show the Barnstaple Leisure Centre as well.
If you’re aged 42 or over, or if you’ll turn 42 before 1 July 2021, you can now book your Covid-19 vaccine.
 Around 1 in 3 people who have COVID-19 have no symptoms at all.
You can get a free, rapid COVID-19 test twice a week.
Order yours at nhs.uk/get-tested
A single dose of a Covid-19 vaccine can slash transmission of the virus by up to half, according to a Public Health England study.
The PHE finding offers further hope that the pandemic can be brought under control as it indicates that vaccinated people are far less likely to pass the virus on to others.
The study found that people given a single dose of either the Pfizer/BioNTech or Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccines – and who became infected at least three weeks later – were between 38% and 49% less likely to pass the virus on to people living in their homes, compared with those who were unvaccinated.
Protection was seen from about 14 days after vaccination, with similar levels regardless of a person’s age. Other studies have already shown that both vaccines are highly effective at stopping people getting sick and ending up in hospital.
We are pleased to announce that after lots of hard work behind the scenes to prepare the grant application forms, they are now live on our website.
There are two grants businesses can apply for. Click the links below to find out if your business is eligible for a grant:
Restart Grants are mainly for businesses which pay Business Rates. You may find that you are put into the lowest category for the Restart grant initially as we may not know the nature of your business but this will be rectified when your application is verified. If this is the case for you, please wait until you get confirmation of your grant award before contacting us. We apologise for any anxiety this may have caused but this is the quickest way for us to get your application into the system.
Additional Restrictions Grants are mainly for businesses which do not have to pay business rates. However, some rate paying businesses such as kennels/catteries and wholesalers who are not eligible for a Restart Grant may be able to get funding from these grants instead.
 For up to date information on cases across Devon, visit the Devon County Council Coronavirus dashboard:
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