Northampton General Hospital will vaccinate inpatients following criticism in national media

Northampton General Hospital will begin vaccinating vulnerable inpatients after it was criticised in national media as one of three in the country who were not doing so already.

The town's acute hospital was called out by Sky News last week for a policy of reportedly not giving the jab to eligible patients while they had them on the ward overnight.

It led to a Government Immunisation adviser, Professor Anthony Harnden of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), warning it was "absolutely essential" vulnerable people should be vaccinated if the chance was there.

Now, at a press conference today (January 29), hospital CEO Deborah Needham said they would begin vaccinating vulnerable inpatients "within the next few days".

The hospital previously said in a statement on January 23 that they were not vaccinating inpatients already as it was more "convenient" if they knew both doses were coming from community teams.

A spokesperson said: "As the first and second dose of the vaccine need to be delivered by the same team, some patients are being vaccinated in a community setting post-discharge so they don’t have to make a return journey to an acute hospital.

"This is safer and more convenient for those patients.”

Today, the hospital has U-turned on the policy and will begin next week.

It comes as 86,000 vaccines have been delivered in Northamptonshire, which has gone out to 87 per cent of the .county's Over-80s population.

This week also saw the launch of Northamptonshire's mass vaccination centre in Moulton Park.Northamptonshire's vaccination coordinator Chris Pallot said today: "We have sufficient vaccines, they have been promised to the county to ensure that we meet that and we have seen non diverted elsewhere.

"We have not taken staff from any frontline service to open the vaccination centre. We are using staff from many different organisation who have made themselves available to help."