All adults can now get Covid jabs at St James' Hospital in Portsmouth without an appointment

Anyone aged over 18 can walk in for their first or second jab at the Solent NHS Trust run large-scale vaccination centres across the county.

These include St James’ Hospital in Portsmouth Oakley Road in Southampton and Basingstoke Fire Station.

Vaccines will be offered on a first come, first served basis and people needing their second dose need to wait until at least eight weeks after their first.

David Noyes, chief operating officer at Solent NHS Trust, said: ‘We are delighted to be reopening walk-in appointments at the large-scale vaccination centres, following the success of the original open access pilots earlier this year.

‘Our walk-in service proved popular earlier in the year and we are looking forward to re-offering this opportunity for people to be able to get their life-saving vaccination whilst they go about their daily lives.’

Data released on July 6 showed 136,715 people in Portsmouth have had at least one vaccine by July 5 – or 72 per cent of the adult population.

In East Hampshire 91,696 people (87.2 per cent) have had one jab and in Fareham 85,631 (87.2 per cent) people had theirs.

And in Gosport 56,338 people (82.9 per cent) had theirs, with 89,285 people (85.2 per cent) having theirs in Havant.

SEE ALSO: City residents urged to exercise caution from July 19

Second vaccinations for Astra Zeneca and Pfizer can be offered at Basingstoke Fire Station and Oakley Road.

And Second vaccinations for Astra Zeneca and Moderna can be offered at St James' Hospital in Portsmouth.

Getting the second dose is vital to getting longer lasting and maximum protection offered by the vaccines, with recent research also showing they are highly effective against the Delta variant of the virus.

It comes as the latest data from Public Health England showed 316 cases of the Delta variant – first identified in India – had been recorded in Portsmouth by June 30.

This was 99 more than the 217 cases recorded the week before.

To use the walk-in vaccine service, people will need to arrive between 8am and 7.30pm. People are advised to bring their NHS number if they have it.

A message from the Editor, Mark Waldron

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