COVID-19 vaccine deliveries begin the week of 21 September, ahead of the campaign starting on 1 October. The main risk at this stage isn’t clinical, it’s logistical — a missed delivery because no one was there to receive it.
Providers need staff available between 8am and 5pm on their scheduled delivery day, including through lunch closures. It’s worth reviewing your delivery slot on the supply dashboard now and checking it against your staff rota, rather than waiting until delivery week to discover a gap.
There’s also a hard cut-off worth knowing about: orders can still be modified up until 8am, two days before delivery, after which they lock. If you need to change quantities or timing, that’s the window to do it in — once it’s passed, you’re committed to what’s on the order.
If something does go wrong — a missed delivery, a query about quantities, anything that needs resolving quickly — the route is your ICB, using the escalation template rather than an ad hoc email or call.
Worth doing now: check your delivery date and time slot on the supply dashboard, confirm someone will be on site 8am-5pm that day even if it falls across a lunch closure, and flag any order changes before the 8am cut-off two days prior.