Over 190 000 adults in Fife have now received their first COVID-19 injection. As the rollout continues to move beyond the initial priority groups, new larger mass vaccination sites are being planned.
One of these new sites will be familiar to shoppers in Kirkcaldy as the former Marks and Spencer store in Kirkcaldy High Street is set to become one of the four new COVID-19 mass vaccination clinics. This large site will play a key part in the expansion of the programme in Fife beyond the initial priority groups. The former M&S shop, now clinic, has been generously offered free of charge to NHS Fife by M&S. It is expected to become operational by May 2021. Additional sites are currently being assessed and will be confirmed in the coming weeks.
Work is now well-underway to ensure that all adults in Fife are offered vaccination on a phased basis over the coming months. This will be helped by the further expansion of the mass vaccination programme across the Kingdom to meet the demand for even greater volumes of COVID-19 jabs. These new clinics are larger still than the current sites and are designed to maximise the throughput of people attending for their jab.
For many months, NHS Fife has been reviewing potential venues to deliver larger numbers of COVID-19 vaccinations, This is down to the fact that this process involves many considerations, such as the accessibility of the potential venues, clinical waste disposal and whether safe physical distancing requirements can be met. This venue ticked these boxes and was approved for use in the very near future, helping to rollout the programme in Fife beyond the initial priority groups.
Vaccinations at the new clinics will continue to be by appointment only.