Listening to the news I was pleased to hear that Jo Whiley -the Radio Two DJ - had managed to secure Covid vaccinations for people with less severe learning difficulties.

I was surprised however to hear that at aged 53 she had received her vaccination already.

I will be 69 in a couple of months and received my letter inviting me to have my vaccination over ten days ago.

Noting the recent experiences of my husband and friends I decided to do as the letter suggested a wait for an appointment in Weymouth, which would be more convenient as I have neurological condition and also have mobility issues.

The letter from the NHS suggested this would ‘very soon’.

After hearing nothing for a week I decided I’d better see if I could get an appointment online.

The Yeovil option disappeared whilst I was trying to book so I opted for Poole - which will be an eventual round trip after two vaccinations of nearly 90 miles.

I gratefully received my vaccination in a very crowded Poole pharmacy last Saturday, full of Weymouth residents, after having had to wait 20 minutes in a queue with no seating, on a very cold day in the muddy garden.

They were so busy so there was no aftercare.

The leaflet enclosed in the NHS letter led me to believe you had to sit and wait 15 minutes to see if you had an allergic reaction.

Nearly two weeks after the receipt of my letter from the NHS I have still not received an invite to have my vaccination in Weymouth.

I have since found out accidentally through my doctor’s patient forum that a decision had been made by the local CCG not to offer local vaccinations to the group 5 cohort of patients aged 65 to 70 locally but to make them travel to Poole, Bournemouth or Yeovil in order for them to vaccinate cohort 6 - 16 to 65 year old ‘at risk’ patients first and only invite the 65 to 70 year olds when cohort 6 had been completed.

It would have saved a lot of worry if I had been informed of this decision as I could have arranged to go to Yeovil sooner.

When were the local powers that be going to inform us? It would been a long wait for cohort 6 to be completed. Please don’t ask me to ring my doctors surgery.

I did as I was told and waited. I did ring my doctor on another matter and the recorded message at surgery stated that under no circumstances were you to ring them as they could not help.

B J SERLE

Weymouth