Asda, UK supermarket set to open in-store COVID vaccination centres

With the much-awaited COVID vaccination breakthrough, many vaccines have gotten approved by the respective boards and committees. Now, the world is eagerly awaiting the distribution and delivery of the vaccine so that our lives can go back to the way they were before the pandemic hit us. A new development in the vaccine delivery space is set to alter the course of how COVID vaccination is delivered to people.

Asda, a leading British supermarket chain, headquartered in Leeds, England, has gotten approval to sell COVID vaccinations at their stores. Apart from Asda, other supermarkets including Tesco and Morrisons have also offered to provide their facilities to store and distribute the vaccine

Wondering what this news means for COVID vaccine delivery and how you can set up your vaccination management system without much hassle? We have all the answers you need.

NHS and Asda: A Collaboration For The Ages

After thorough evaluation and inspection, NHS England announced that it has selected supermarket Asda to run a COVID vaccination center from an in-store pharmacy in Birmingham, UK. This news comes after many vaccines were approved for use including the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine.

The National Health Service’s decision is part of the UK government’s bigger COVID Vaccines Delivery Plan to vaccinate all UK adults by September. In a statement, the chief executive officer and president of Asda, Roger Burnley expressed faith in the company’s ability and eagerness to help the government roll out the vaccine and said “We are incredibly proud to provide this service and are keen to do all we can to help the NHS and government accelerate the rollout of the vaccination program”.

The current plan of action is for qualified pharmacists to administer the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to all priority groups identified by the NHS starting January 25th. The Asda supermarket brand where the vaccination drive will occur is located in Birmingham although the exact store locations haven’t been revealed yet. Currently, the supermarket pharmacy will have a capacity of 250 jabs per day.

How Asda Will Manage COVID Vaccination and Appointment Scheduling

Asda is expected to remodel its George clothing department to create a vaccination center that’ll operate from 8 AM to 8 PM, seven days a week. The supermarket chain is also continually working with NHS England and Public Health England to look at other sites within its estate that could potentially be transformed into a vaccination center. In a statement, the company confirmed that it would continue to work with Public Health England and NHS England to assess additional sites that could support the vaccination program.

Currently, the plan is for individuals in priority groups to receive details of their vaccination appointment from the NHS. Then, they’ll get the option to choose the Asda store as the location to receive their vaccination. Individuals cannot directly contact the Asda store and will not be entertained if they arrive without a prior appointment.

Roger Burney added, “We have an extensive nationwide logistics network that could support the storage and distribution of the vaccine and our highly-trained pharmacy colleagues are experienced in delivering large vaccination programs, having recently provided nearly 200,000 flu jabs to members of the public”.

Asda has also offered NHS England its 238 in-store pharmacies and certified pharmacists to help with the rollout of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine program that’s just picking up. Given that the Oxford vaccine is easier to transport and store, it can be administered from Asda’s network of pharmacies.

Set Up Your Vaccination Management System

With Asda being the first supermarket to enter the vaccine delivery and distribution space, it won’t be long before regulations for vaccine delivery systems and businesses come into place and private companies can enter the COVID vaccine delivery vertical. If you have an already established pharmacy or online delivery operation and want to enter the vaccine delivery segment, we have just the solution for you.

Use Tookan, a powerful delivery management and appointment scheduling software that allows you to enhance your delivery services with an exciting collection of features including:

• Waybills using which you can automate barcode generation for single and multiple delivery orders
• Secure SMS gateways to help you regulate end-to-end communications between your business and customers with ease
• Seamless payment gateways to help you serve your customers with swift and convenient payment options for their transactions
• Choose from the set of APIs available and customize your freight management software
• All orders placed by customers are verified against the inventory of all drivers and the driver with sufficient inventory is assigned the order
• Tookan logistics manages and tracks long-haul deliveries which improve the efficiency of your supply chain
• Agent capacity management where every task will have an associated capacity and will be auto allocated to agents satisfying sufficient capacity criteria
• Automatic barcode generation automatically generates a barcode for scanning to verify that the order is delivered to the right person
• We help you minimize the maintenance cost caused by vehicle breakdown by sending you early warning alerts when the part being monitored needs maintenance or is close to failure
• Our complete delivery management solution enables you to monitor your fleet’s behavior in real-time. Be aware of your fleet’s complete driving behavior from idle vehicle time, rash driving instances, and much more

These are just some of the features that set up apart from other delivery management software in the market. Partner with Tookan and take your vaccination management business to the next level. Powered with our tools and solutions, you can foster an efficient delivery fleet, manage your inventory well, and take advantage of our agent capacity manager.

Have questions about how you can utilize Tookan to the best of your advantage. Get in touch with our team of experts right now.