Tamworth COVID-19 vaccine rollout: Primary Health Network confirmed vaccinations should arrive at GP clinics in New England region from March 22

Primary Health Network (PHN) executive director for the region John Baillie confirmed March 22 is the date for the first local doctors to receive vials of the COVID-19 vaccine.

"Absolutely, practices in the New England North West will receive vaccines from that first week," Mr Baillie said.

"The timeline is now clear."

Mr Baillie said 46 surgeries in the area had been deemed eligible to give out the jab.

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The first of the AstraZeneca doses will arrive in the region on March 22, but the wider rollout to more practices is expected to take about a month and is limited by supply.

Mr Baillie said the Tamworth Respiratory Clinic, which was set up by Northwest Health earlier in the pandemic, had been confirmed as a vaccination centre.

Northwest Health GP Dr Ian Kamerman told the Leader it had been a "long time coming".

"We are expecting to start vaccinating people the week of March 22," he said.

He could not confirm how many doses the company would receive per week, but said he understood it would take some time to get Tamworth covered.

"Sites are getting between, to start with, 50 and 400 doses per week and I think it will be rolling out fairly slow to start with," he said.

"I think to test logistics and get processes in place ... that's reasonable given there is no widespread outbreak in Australia."

Dr Kamerman said doctors surgeries across the region had been through rigorous training and preparation to get ready for the mass rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine.

He said he was confident that, with the spread of practices that put their hand up across the region, everyone would get the chance to access the jab when it was their turn.

"Because not every practice is going to be a vaccination centre, it means ... the rules around being a vaccination centre is that you cannot just vaccinate your own patients, you have to treat every member of the community in that phase as equal," he assured residents.

"It's a whole lot safer having the vaccination than running the risk of being exposed to COVID without being immunised, and the risk of death or being hospitalised for many weeks."

This stage of the vaccination rollout will cover Phase 1b patients - which includes people over 70; people with serious underlying conditions; and Aboriginal and Torrest Strait Islander people over the age of 55 years.

Aged care facilities in the region can expect to be visited by a travelling medical team, that will vaccinate staff and residents on-site, but it is not yet clear when it will be Tamworth's turn.

The Hunter New England Health (HNEH) district is on a slightly different timeline, with a Pfizer vaccination clinic expected to be set up at the hospital for frontline workers within a month.

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