Scotland's vaccine roll-out now 'motoring', insists Nicola Sturgeon ahead of over-80s deadline

Scotland's troubled vaccine roll-out has finally started "motoring", Nicola Sturgeon has insisted ahead of Friday's deadline for all over-80s to be given a jab.

The First Minister said 45,085 people were given their jabs on Wednesday, the third daily record in a row following the opening on Monday of mass vaccination centres in Edinburgh and Aberdeen.

Although Scotland's roll-out continued to lag behind the other three home nations, she said it was starting to catch up on England. However, it fell further behind Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ms Sturgeon admitted that some Scots over 80 may "fall through the cracks" but insisted that only "very small numbers" should not get their jabs by Friday.

However, two senior Labour parliamentarians highlighted a series of cases they had received involving pensioners aged up to 97 who have not been contacted about a vaccine.

Anas Sarwar, a Glasgow MSP and Scottish Labour leadership candidate, said his "inbox is overflowing with emails from anxious residents and care workers."

Ian Murray, the Edinburgh South MP, said elderly residents in the city were "being kept in the dark", especially those who are housebound.

Widespread concerns have also been raised by Scots over 70 who have not been invited for a jab. This was supposed to happen by the end of last week, only for the deadline to be extended until Saturday.

Ms Sturgeon used her daily Covid briefing to invite those who had been missed to write to her directly after admitting a vaccination phoneline she highlighted on Wednesday was not for "person-specific advice."

She also said the deadline for vaccinating all 580,000 people who are over 70 or clinically vulnerable was still Feb 15 after Prof Jason Leitch, the national clinical director, suggested it had been extended to Feb 19.

But she expressed concerns that wintry weather expected in the north of Scotland over the next few days could slow the roll-out there.

The Met Office has issued an amber warning for "heavy and persistent" snow for much of the north of Scotland. The Highlands, Aberdeenshire, Tayside and Perthshire are expected to be the worst affected.

Ms Sturgeon has come under increasing pressure this week over the slow pace of Scotland's roll-out, with England in particular streaking ahead with vaccinating the over-70s.

Although she claimed this was down to her concentrating on the "most vulnerable", Scotland is only slightly ahead of England on its roll-out in care homes and has been consistently behind for both the over-70s and over-80s.

She announced yesterday that 90 per cent of the over-80s cohort had been reached, a benchmark passed in England on Monday, and 38 per cent of those aged between 75 and 79. England had reached around 85 per cent of this group two days previously.

More than a fifth (20.4 per cent) of England's adult population has received its first jab, compared to 19.4 per cent in Wales, 18.2 per cent in Northern Ireland and 15.7 per cent in Scotland.

But Ms Sturgeon insisted "the catch-up is there" after England reported 378,794 vaccinations on Thursday, a slower rate taking into account its larger population.

She said: "We're motoring through the other groups and we'll continue to do that at the pace that we are now setting.

"If we take the last two days, we are not just vaccinating more compared to last week ourselves, but the vaccination rate in Scotland is about 30 per cent higher in the last couple of days this week so far than in England."

Scotland only had one mass vaccination centre before Monday, at the NHS Louisa Jordan temporary hospital in Glasgow. The British Army also started vaccinating Scots after the SNP government appealed for help.

Ms Sturgeon said it was "very unlikely" her government would reach all people over 80 by Friday but it would try to get as close "as possible" to the target.

She said that in "a big-scale system it will be the case that for a variety of reasons, small numbers of people might fall through the cracks for administrative reasons."

But Mr Sarwar and Mr Murray highlighted a series of troubling cases including a 97-year-old housebound woman in Edinburgh unable to find out from the national helpline when she will be vaccinated.

Among the other examples they raised were of an 87-year-old woman in the capital whose GP did not know when she will be vaccinated, and a 74-year-old man who was shielding with lung fibrosis and had not been contacted with an appointment.

Mr Murray said: "While there are signs of improvement, we’ve been lagging behind the rest of the UK for too long and the SNP needs to urgently up its game and stop the false excuses that are causing such distress for so many.”

Ms Sturgeon told Wednesday's First Minister's Questions that concerned Scots in priority groups who had not received an appointment should ring a helpline, before reading out an 0800 number.

However, the line applied to only half of Scotland’s 14 health board areas, with the others using a variety of other numbers and contact methods.

She urged them to contact her office directly instead.