ALL Slough care home patients and staff are expected to be vaccinated by the end of this week, a public health official announced.

As part of the massive UK vaccine rollout, Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated his target to give the first dose of vaccine to 15 million people in the four groups by mid-February.

So far, over 2.4 million people have received their first dose.

The leader of the Conservatives, councillor Wayne Strutton (Haymill and Lynch Hill) asked at an outbreak engagement board meeting on Tuesday (January 12) what was the update on the vaccination rollout in the borough’s care homes.

READ MORE: Coronavirus in Berkshire round up - Monday, January 12

Tracey Faraday-Drake, East Berkshire Clinical Commissioning Group’s managing director for Slough, announced she expects all of the borough’s care homes to be vaccinated by the end of this week.

She said: “We pretty much completed the care homes and care home staff. They were our priority groups to start with.

“I think probably by the end of this week, we will have done all of the care homes and care home staff as well and that’s really important to keep people safe."

She added: “At the moment, we’re busy vaccinating all of our vulnerable people and frontline workers as well. We’re making really good progress.”

On testing, the leader of the council, councillor James Swindlehurst (Labour: Cippenham Green) asked what will happen to the Montem testing centre as the agreement to use the land is due to end at the beginning of March.

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This is because the former leisure centre site is subject to a planning application for more than 200 homes – which will be decided by the planning committee tonight.

Tessa Lindfield, strategic director for public health for Berkshire, said she doesn’t know yet – but expects they will need the testing centre beyond March which could be relocated to the North West Quadrant.

Another option could be combing the PCR testing site, which detects Covid-19, with current lateral flowing testing sites, which detects if someone is infectious or not, such as the Centre on Farnham Road.

Sue Foley, public health consultant at the council, added Slough will soon see mobile testing sites across the borough, mainly in wards with high infection rates.