A pop-up vaccination clinic is to be held in St George’s Square in Huddersfield this weekend.

The team of volunteers led by Medicare Chemists, which has been so successful in Honley, could vaccinate as many as 2,000 people each day.

A huge marquee is to be erected in St George’s Square on June 26 and 27 and anyone due a vaccine can just turn up.

Medicare set up the vaccination centre at Honley Village Hall in January and have built on that expertise opening centres in Slaithwaite and Clayton West.

Pop-up clinics are now being used to speed up vaccinations and the Honley team have gone into Kirklees factories to help protect more people from Covid-19.

The team has been sent into some of the district’s biggest employers – Fox’s Biscuits in Batley, UK Greetings in Dewsbury and PPG, a paint factory, in Birstall – vaccinating hundreds of workers.

On Saturday there were walk-ins at Honley and people waiting were entertained by buskers including teenagers Altitude, who wowed their audience and were rewarded with some generous donations. On the day 750 jabs were delivered.

Altitude went down a storm at Honley Vaccination Centre

Fahad Rehman, operational lead for Medicare, which has eight pharmacies around Huddersfield, said the team was excited to be pitching up in St George’s Square.

“We are hoping this will be the most successful of our pop-up clinics,” said Fahad. “We will be giving both first and second doses and we can do up to 2,000 people each day.

“We are being supported by Kirklees Council and NHS England and the advice is eight weeks between jabs however if someone turns up a little bit early they won’t be turned away. We don’t want to create barriers. Let’s get this over and done with!”

Anyone over 18 can now have their first jab and Fahad wants to get the message out to young people that they can just turn up when it’s convenient for them. At Honley on Saturday no-one was waiting more than 20 minutes.

The Government is to ramp up the vaccine message next weekend as the race is on to get jabs into arms so that restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible.

“We are getting our lives back to normal,” said Fahad. “We are on the home run!”

Young people flocked to the drop-in clinic at Honley on Saturday

Fahad praised the team of amazing volunteers who have made it all possible. There were at least 300 volunteers at Honley and 100 each at Slaithwaite and Clayton West the last time he looked – but that was weeks ago.

“The team in Honley have answered every call.” said Fahad. “The volunteers have been amazing and will do whatever it takes.”

Fahad said there were around 70,000 people in Kirklees who still needed a first and second dose while 20,000-30,000 have had first jabs.

“We want Huddersfield to get ahead and be protected and St George’s Square is going to be iconic,” he said.

St George’s Square will have both Astra Zeneca and Pfizer vaccines and the clinic will be open from 9am-5pm on Saturday and 10am-4pm on Sunday.