PM promises to vaccinate all care home residents by end of month, as figures show England lags behind rest of UK

Boris Johnson has promised every care home resident in England will be offered a coronavirus jab by the end of this month, in the wake of revelations that only one in 10 so far has been given the vaccine.

Mr Johnson told MPs only 10 per cent of care home residents in England have had their Covid vaccine in comparison to over 50 per cent in Scotland and over 90 per cent in Northern Ireland.

Medical staff are "well over half way through" vaccinating Scotland's care home residents with their first dose against Covid-19, according to Nicola Sturgeon.

Vaccination teams have visited 439 of the 483 care homes in Northern Ireland, with the Department of Health saying it expects to vaccinate the remaining homes by mid January.

Speaking at a Downing Street press conference last night, the Prime Minister promised to "accelerate" the vaccination programme across all care homes by the end of January.

The Prime Minister said: “It’s thanks to the arrival of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine which can be stored at room temperature, that we can accelerate the rate of vaccinations in care homes.

“We’re using that vaccine in care homes for the first time today and by the end of the month we hope to have offered every elderly care home resident a vaccine.

“If all goes well, these together should have the capacity to deliver 100,000’s vaccines per day by January 15 and it is our plan that everyone should have a vaccination within a radius of 10 miles.

“I have no doubt we have enough supply to vaccinate these four groups by the February 15 deadline and we also have the distributional network to do it."

Care leaders and charities said the announcement is the "booster" everyone needs.

Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum (NCF), said: "The scale of the challenge set by government over the next month is significant.

"It will rely on huge amounts of local communication and coordination between care homes, GPs and local public health teams.

"The response to the vaccine so far has been incredible, with residents and staff embracing it when available.

"Everyone is seeing this as a way forward for this most vulnerable population and being able to mark it as ‘job done’ by the end of the month will literally be the booster that everyone across the country needs."

Age UK director Caroline Abrahams added: "Care homes have had a torrid time since the start of the pandemic and it is vital that vaccinations happen as quickly and efficiently as possible and that residents and the care staff get the protection they need."

Over half of Scottish care home residents have received their first vaccine

Earlier this week, Boris Johnson admitted just one in 10 residents in care homes has been vaccinated.

Mr Johnson said: “So far, I believe 10 per cent of care home residents and 14 per cent of care home staff have received the vaccine – but that clearly needs to be stepped up.”

Scotland's First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, held a coronavirus briefing in Edinburgh yesterday and announced more than 50 per cent of care home residents in Scotland had been vaccinated.

Ms Sturgeon said: "We are now well over half way through vaccinating care home residents with their first dose of the vaccine.

"That is extremely important, as you have just heard, more than a third of people who died from Covid last week died in our care homes.

"We very much hope that the vaccine will very soon start to significantly reduce the risk of care home residents becoming ill with the virus."

The Scottish Government will start publishing daily updates on how many vaccines have been delivered from January 11.

The weekly report by Public Health Scotland will also offer a more detailed breakdown of those who have been vaccinated.

The Scottish government also announced 1,100 vaccine sites will be ready in the coming days.

Over 90 per cent of care homes in NI have now been vaccinated

In Northern Ireland, vaccination teams have visited 439 of its 483 care homes.

Figures from the Department of Health shows 9,644 care home residents and 11,260 care home staff have received their first dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech jab where more than 46,000 first doses of the have been administered.

Nearly 1.5 million people have been vaccinated in the UK. 1.26 million people in England, 113,000 in Scotland, 49,000 in Wales and 46,000 in Northern Ireland.

Wales planning to match England's target

Wales has not released its figures yet as to how many care home residents it has vaccinated.

Dr Gillian Richardson, the senior officer behind Wales’ COVID-19 Vaccine Programme told ITV News that "if supply is forthcoming" the ambition would be for Wales to match the targets set by Boris Johnson for England.