YORK is to become a national vaccination hub – with people living up to 45 minutes away travelling to the city to receive the jab.

Extra temporary buildings are being put up at the vaccination site at the former Askham Bar Park & Ride site and 8,000 extra appointments are due to be made available during the first phase of the expansion.

Prof Mike Holmes told a City of York Council meeting: “We've been commissioned by the NHS to deliver a national vaccination centre.

“Many of you will have noticed that earlier this week there were seven centres that were launched. We're going to be in the wave two and we'll launch a national vaccination centre from Askham Bar from Monday.

“You may have noticed that there's been modular buildings installed on the site by Portakabin over the last two weeks and we'll open them officially on Monday.”

He said appointments will be for both patients and health and social care staff. Priority groups will be invited for their vaccinations first.

People who are eligible for the jab will receive a letter and Prof Holmes told the meeting : “The way patients will be invited into that will be twofold.

“They will use the national booking website which went live last week and they'll be invited to do so by the NHS, so the NHS  are going to be sending out letters to all people who live within a 45-minute travelling radius to Askham Bar to invite them to book in to that system if they wish.

“We're also running our own booking system which we'll make available for health and social care staff.

“We're working with our local CCG to ensure that that booking link gets distributed to employers across health and social care in a systematic way.”

All of York’s care home residents are set to have received the vaccination by early next week and the meeting heard 12,000 total vaccinations have already been done in the city.

Housebound residents are set to be vaccinated soon and Prof Holmes said the site received 1,200 doses of the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine yesterday afternoon (Thursday).