Covid-19: Milton Keynes Dons stadium opens for vaccinations

It is hoped 600 people will come to Stadium MK a day for Covid-19 vaccination

A football league club has opened its 30,000-capacity stadium for Covid vaccinations in the hope of giving more than 600 jabs a day.

Stadium MK, the home of League One Milton Keynes Dons, will offer walk-in jabs, and bookings from Wednesday.

Local health leaders in the area said they had to double their capacity to meet vaccination targets.

Felicity Cox, from the local clinical commissioning group (CCG), said she was "delighted" the centre had opened.

The rollout at Milton Keynes is being supported by the RAF

Earlier this week, the government set a new target of the end of the month to offer boosters to all adults who want one.

It was in response to cases of the Omicron variant, which continue to surge ahead of Christmas.

Ms Cox, from Bedfordshire, Luton and Milton Keynes CCG, said: "We've got to increase our capacity to almost double what we were doing last week and this is a big part of our push on doing this.

"We're aiming to get 600 through here every day and we may get more."

The centre would also be open on matchdays, the club said

John Cove, a director at MK Dons, said the club was "at the centre of the community and nothing can be more of a community need than enabling people to get their vaccinations".

He said the vaccination centre would also remain open when the club hosted home matches.

Mr Cove said the stadium had held Rugby World Cup matches and would be a venue for Women's Euro 2022 but "having a vaccination [centre] is up with those events".

He added the stadium would be available to the vaccination team "as long as they need it".

Stadium MK will offer walk-in jabs, and booking from Wednesday

Dr Tayo Kufeji, a GP from the Newport Pagnell Medical Centre, said: "We've been seeing rising cases of Covid, particularly the Omicron variant, so we want to protect our population as much as we can."

He said the new variant was "very concerning because we know it is highly transmissible".

The uptake of the vaccination had been very good, Dr Kufeji said, adding the boosters "are catching up very quickly".

"We are seeing more people coming forward in the last few weeks, so I think the message is definitely getting out," he said.

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