COVID-19 vaccinations for 12-15 year olds in Manchester

COVID-19 vaccinations for 12-15 year olds in Manchester

The UK’s Chief Medical Officers announced in September that all 12-15-year olds will be offered a first dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as part of the national vaccination programme.

There are two main ways that 12-15 year olds in Manchester can get their COVID-19 vaccinations.

  1. Vaccination in school

Vaccinations are being delivered on school sites in Manchester by the Manchester Local Care Organisation NHS School Health Immunisation Service. This is the team who deliver a range of other school age vaccinations in the city’s schools as part of their regular work and are therefore experienced at delivering vaccines in these settings.

Every secondary school (including SEND and private schools) will be visited as part of this programme that started at the end of September. All schools will be visited by the end of November.

Parental consent is being sought and parents and guardians will be communicated with via schools in line with the process for other vaccinations. Parents are being sent an electronic consent form in advance of the school visit, alongside the national letter and information leaflet to help parents and children to have informed discussions so they can decide on whether to take up the vaccination offer.

  1. Booking your child directly through the COVID-19 vaccination national booking service

The Government announced on 21 October that parents of 12-15 year olds also can now book a COVID-19 vaccination for their child directly through the COVID-19 vaccination national booking service.

This allows parents to book a child’s COVID-19 vaccination at one of mass vaccination centres such at the Etihad Campus site in Manchester. This offer is also likely to extend to a number of other local community based vaccination sites (such as community pharmacies and other centres) but please note that these may not be available as an options straight away.

This national offer is in addition to the in-school COVID-19 vaccination programme being delivered by the NHS School Health Service immunisation teams. It is designed to give you more options for accessing the vaccination if you have decided you want your child to be vaccinated. If your child’s school has not been visited by the vaccination team yet, you can wait for that and do not need to book using the national service.

If your child missed a vaccination at school

Importantly, you can also use the national booking service for booking a vaccination if your child missed their vaccination. For example if they were absent from school on the day the immunisation team visited or if consent was not received by the school team in time.

Please bear in mind that if your child has had a recent positive COVID test they will have to wait 28 days from the date of the test (or when their symptoms started) before being able to be vaccinated.

How to book using the national booking service

Booking for 12-15 year olds is due to open on the National Booking Service from the end of Friday 22 October. There are two ways to book using the national booking service:

To book online:

To book on the phone:

  • If you cannot book your appointment online, phone 119 free of charge, 7am to 11pm, 7 days a week. You can ask someone else to do this for you. Please let us know if you need an interpreter.
  • You can use text phone 18001 119 or the NHS British Sign Language interpreter service at interpreternow.co.uk/nhs119

Where to find further information about the COVID-19 vaccination for 12-15 year olds

The NHS is encouraging parents and guardians to have a discussion with children as soon as possible about the vaccination so an informed decision can be made. There are a range of national leaflets available that explain more about the vaccine, the benefits and side effects.

Information is also available for young people in a range of other languages from these links:

English, Arabic, Bengali, Brazilian Portuguese, Bulgarian, Chinese, Estonian, Farsi, Greek,

Gujarati, Hindi, Latvian, Lithuanian, Panjabi, Pashto, Polish, Romanian, Romany, Russian, Somali, Spanish, Tagalog, Turkish, Twi, Ukrainian, Urdu and Yiddish [links to external sites].