Leicestershire County Council is planning an 8-10 week Covid-19 vaccination programme in schools to maximise uptake among 12-to-15-year-olds.

Following the Government's announcement that the Covid-19 vaccine will now be offered to 12-to-15-year-olds, the County Council is rolling out an in-school effort to ensure as many young people as possible have access to the jabs.

Sunday night's Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland Joint Health Committee heard the council has plans to launch the programme late next week.

They expect it to take 8-10 weeks to get around all the schools in the LLR area.

Parental permission is expected to be required for the pupils to receive the vaccine, with plans for a second stage of vaccinations being considered at a later date for those who miss their chance due to a recent positive test or vaccine hesitancy.

Kay Darby, deputy director of the vaccination programme, said: 'Because the covid vaccine is a little more contentious, there's a slightly different approach [to other in school vaccinations].

"So the approach is very much going to be around parental consent.

"It may not be the approach that children can consent themselves, without parental consent.

"Some people will need more information and will take longer to make a decision that they want their child vaccinated.

"So we will be working on how those people can come forward if a vaccination comes to a school and some people are not ready and have not had time to think it through.

"There will be a second re-offer for those people."

The vaccination teams will also be working with schools to provide as much information as possible to parents and pupils so they can make an informed choice about whether they want to be vaccinated.

Concerns were raised at the meeting by Leicestershire County Councillor, Amanda Hack, who questioned whether the plans to vaccinate 12-to-15-year-olds in Leicestershire come too late, given that the county went back to school earlier than most.

She said a lot of Leicestershire children have tested positive for the virus since the return to school and now have to wait 30 days before they can get a vaccine, a challenge schools in other parts of the country do not have.

However, Caroline Trevithick, Chief Nurse and Executive Director of Nursing, Quality and Performance for Leicestershire, said there was nothing that could have been done about this as they had to wait for the Government to give the go ahead for this age group.

She said: "It's difficult for me to say whether I think it's too late or not as we are guided by a national programme.

"I've been here before and said 'a national programme is a national programme'.

"I think what it does do is it presents additional challenges that other areas may not have because of the fact that we've got children back in school for longer and so our programme is going to have to adapt to that.

"So if we have children who have tested positive, we are going to have to think about how we're going to do some sort of mop up exercise for them."