Dr. Colm Henry:

This is a big priority for people who would otherwise either get very sick or worse with this virus. It is a big priority for healthcare assistants because of the impact we are seeing. Reference was made this morning to the situation in the Antrim hospital in the North. Vaccination is also important in terms of reopening society and the economy. Part of this will involve us deploying staff away from other services where they are currently employed. Since reopening healthcare services, we have a full range, including cancer screening services. Community services have reopened and we are trying to redeploy and keep staff in those services rather than redeploy them away. We will be leaning heavily on those experienced vaccinators, between school vaccination programmes, GPs, nurses and pharmacists. It will involve prioritising this work over other elements of work, and there will always be some pain associated with that.