Asda Pharmacy has launched its first in-store Covid vaccination service at its Cape Hill store in Birmingham on Thursday (Jan 28).
The retail supermarket giant has also confirmed that a second vaccination centre will open at its Watford store next week.
Asda has worked in partnership with the NHS to become the first supermarket in the country to provide in-store Covid vaccinations, with trained pharmacists delivering 240 jabs per day at Cape Hill, to priority groups selected by the NHS.
With the latest launch of vaccination drive at the Asda site, as many as 46 pharmacy-led sites have started administering Covid-19 vaccinations from Thursday by taking the total number of pharmacy-led sites offering to Covid-19 vaccinations to 117.
The Asda supermarket has transformed its clothing department at the store to accommodate the vaccination centre, which will operate from 8am to 8pm, seven days a week.
Faisal Tuddy, Asda superintendent pharmacist, said: “We are incredibly proud to be the first supermarket pharmacy to administer the vaccine and to play our part in helping the NHS roll outs its vaccination programme.
“Many of the people who will attend the store today have been shielding at home for months and we hope receiving the vaccine is the first step towards a return to normality for them.
“We are also stepping up our support for the NHS by opening a second in-store vaccination centre next week and have offered all of our 254 in-store pharmacies across the UK, along with our logistics network, to help with the roll out.”
Asda is also stepping up its support for the NHS vaccination programme by transforming the George section of its Watford superstore – creating a much larger space that has the capacity to deliver 3,500 vaccines a week.
The supermarket is currently working to repurpose the space ready for its pharmacy colleagues to start providing vaccines to patients identified by the NHS the week commencing February 1.
