Fife College’s Carnegie Conference Centre in Dunfermline is the latest site to be confirmed as a mass COVID-19 vaccination clinic as the project to help protect the Kingdom’s residents against the virus prepares to move into its second phase.
Representatives from Fife College made contact with NHS Fife earlier this year to offer the use of their facilities free-of-charge to the Health Board for use as vaccination clinics. The Canmore Hall Suite within the Carnegie Conference Centre was identified as a possible location and a thorough assessment was carried to ensure the suitability of the venue to safely deliver many hundreds of COVID-19 vaccinations each day.
In addition to providing significant space so that social distancing could be maintained, Carnegie Conference Centre also has good public transport links and dedicated parking facilities. The mass vaccination clinic is expected to become operational in May 2021.
For many months, NHS Fife has been reviewing potential venues to deliver larger numbers of COVID-19 vaccinations - this involved considering the accessibility of the potential venues, clinical waste disposal and whether safe physical distancing requirements could be met.
Four mass vaccination sites are currently planned in towns across the Kingdom to meet the demand for even greater volumes of COVID-19 jabs. The confirmation of the use of Fife College’s Carnegie Conference Centre follows the recent announcement that the former M&S store on Kirkcaldy High Street will too become a mass vaccination site. The two remaining remaining mass vaccination sites will be confirmed shortly.
The new mass vaccination clinics are larger still and are designed to maximise the throughput of people attending for their jab. Vaccinations at the new clinics will continue to be by appointment only.
Since early February 2021 a network of community COVID-19 clinics in Fife have been in operation, performing many thousands of immunisations each week. More than 220,000 jabs now having been administered, and with the likely completion of first doses for those in priority groups 1 to 9 in the coming weeks, the programme is beginning to move into a new phase which will see all adults in Fife offered vaccination on a incremental basis over the coming months.
The latest information on the COVID-19 vaccination programme in Fife is available on NHS Fife’s website at: https://fife.link/vaccinationclinics
Additional information on the COVID-19 vaccination programme in Scotland is available on the NHS Inform website by visiting: https://www.nhsinform.scot/healthy-living/immunisation/vaccines/coronavirus-covid-19-vaccine.
Photo - (L to R) NHS Fife Director of Nursing, Janette Owens; Fife College Student/ NHS Fife Vaccinator, Jenny Colling; and Principal of Fife College, Dr Hugh Hall.
