HEALTH bosses have finally offered a walk-in clinic in Winchester.

With almost no notice or publicity one was offered today at Badger Farm Community Centre between 1-5pm. A tweet was issued at 9am this morning, just four hours beforehand. It was unclear how many members of the public attended.

 

The same venue will be open tomorrow (Wednesday, January 5) afternoon between 1-5pm.

Winchester is the last major town in Hampshire to get a walk-in clinic although ones have run in Colden Common and Boyatt Wood in Eastleigh.

The Chronicle asked last week why the county town had no walk-in clinic. No direct response was received but in another statement last Friday Dr Matt Nisbet, GP and Clinical Lead of the Covid-19 Vaccination Programme, said: “Health and care teams have worked tirelessly to rapidly increase the availability of Covid-19 vaccines across Hampshire and Isle of Wight in recent weeks. We are hugely grateful to all of our colleagues, partners and volunteers for their efforts in helping to ensure as many people as possible are protected against the virus.

“Latest evidence shows that two vaccines to do not give us the protection we need from Omicron due to the speed at which the variant spreads, However a booster can restore protection to around 75%, so I strongly encourage everyone eligible to take up the offer of a booster as soon as possible.”

READ MORE HERE: The Covid/Omicron latest in Winchester

Steve Brine MP said this evening: “I am pleased the local NHS have heeded calls to add some walk-in dates for Winchester which supplement their successful booster roll out programme of last month.

“We need to be doing everything we can, and making it as easy as possible, to keep my constituents fully vaccinated. I hope this trial is a success and we can see more of it because we’re clearly going to need an ongoing effort to maintain immunity from Covid in the population."

Mr Brine added: “We do also need a more varied offer because we cannot keep putting this on our GPs without further impacting their ability to provide all the other primary care services we demand of them.”