Defence staff to help support vaccine programme

More than 750 Armed Forces personnel will be administering coronavirus vaccines and helping with planning to maximise the effectiveness of the booster rollout.

Over 100 personnel are currently supporting the vaccine rollout in Scotland. 600 Armed Forces personnel have been made available to NHS England to administer vaccines, working in small teams across the country.

Additionally, around 50 personnel will provide planning support to NHS England. 41 planners will deploy to NHS trusts across England and 10 logistics experts will be based at NHS England’s headquarters in London.

Planners based at NHS England headquarters will be led by Brigadier Phil Prosser who was previously deployed to support the delivery of the vaccine programme which began in December 2020.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said: “We have rapidly mobilised Service personnel to work alongside our dedicated health services to accelerate the vaccine booster programme. Our Armed Forces will help to get vaccines into arms as quickly as possible as we continue our efforts to support the UK’s response to the pandemic.”

Health and Social Care Secretary Sajid Javid said: “We are turbocharging our Covid-19 booster programme to offer every adult in England a vaccine by the end of the year to protect people from the Omicron variant. Building our defences through boosters is a hugely important national mission and it’s brilliant to see the military supporting our NHS staff in our race against the virus. Please get boosted now to top-up your immunity and keep yourself and your loved ones safe this winter.”