Health leaders revealed today they are in discussions with the organisers of the Great Yorkshire Show about whether the event and the vaccination programme on the site can take place together.
The Yorkshire Agricultural Society announced this week it planned to stage the three-day show from July 13 to 15, adding the decision would be ‘reviewed regularly’.
This raised questions about the impact on the mass vaccination programme that is being run at the Great Yorkshire Showground.
The showground, which can carry out up to 1,800 vaccinations a day, has been the Harrogate district’s main vaccine centre since December.
The NHS is due to be giving jabs to under-50s at the time of the show.
The vaccines are administered in the Yorkshire Event Centre building at the showground. The event centre is usually a key part of the Great Yorkshire Show, hosting many food stalls.
Read more:
- Great Yorkshire Showground can give 1,800 vaccines in a day
- Great Yorkshire Show set to go ahead in July
Amanda Bloor, accountable officer for North Yorkshire Clinical Commissioning Group, told a coronavirus press briefing today:
“It’s great that we can see the light at the end of the tunnel and that venues which would have been standing empty have been serving such a great purpose.
“There are a number of sites we will be having conversations with over the next few weeks and there are also sites we are already in discussions with.
“We are talking about how we can run vaccination sites concurrently with public-facing events or whether we need to think about providing it in a different way.
“So we are working with individual sites to understand what the different options are for us.”
The Stray Ferret also asked the Yorkshire Agricultural Society about the situation.
Heather Parry, Managing Director of Yorkshire Event Centre said:
“We are discussing our plans with the NHS vaccination centre and together we expect to come up with workable solutions.”
