The body that commissions health care in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire has today (Monday) urged people not to contact GP surgeries about the Covid-19 vaccination.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Clinical Commission Group (CCG) has said additional vaccination sites will be available in the coming days and weeks.

There are currently no centres for administering the jab to patients in the immediate Huntingdonshire area and elderly and vulnerable people will be advised when they are scheduled to receive the vaccine.

The CCG said there were sites at Peterborough City and Addenbrooke's hospitals, together with medical practices in the Ely, Wisbech and South Peterborough areas.

A spokesman for the CCG said: "More Covid vaccines will become available for use, and as each batch is manufactured and additional sites open we can expand the vaccination appointments we have available."

There has been concern amongst elderly and vulnerable patients about a lack of information over when they will be called in for vaccination and where the treatment will take place.

By the end of December, more than 3.5 million vaccinations had taken place nationally. Priority groups for the vaccine are determined by the Government and currently that includes care home residents, carers, frontline health and social care staff and people aged over 80.

The first Oxford AstraZeneca vaccinations will be delivered at a small number of hospitals for the first few days for surveillance purposes, as is standard practice, before the bulk of supplies are send to hundreds of GP-led services later in the week.

Professor Stephen Powis NHS medical director has said: “The NHS’ biggest vaccination programme in history is off to a strong start, thanks to the tremendous efforts of NHS staff who have already delivered more than one million jabs.

Last week, regulators and the four UK chief medical officers announced that the gap between first and second doses of the Pfizer vaccine should be lengthened so that more people can be protected faster. Delivery of the Pfizer jab, the first vaccine to be approved, is therefore also now able to be accelerated.

The NHS has now vaccinated more people than anywhere else in Europe, including more than one in five people over the age of 80.