West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin has praised health chiefs and local health teams and GPs who are rolling out vaccines to vulnerable groups and essential health and care workers at a speed that offers hope of a release of lockdown in the near future.

The Herefordshire and Worcestershire’s vaccine roll out plan is third best in England with 76.2 per cent of over 80 year olds getting at least one jab.

And the team plans to expand capability with the opening of two major vaccination centres in Bromsgrove and at the Three Counties Showground in the coming weeks.

Harriett said: “I receive regular briefings on the great progress that we are making across the two counties and this is tribute to the efforts of GP and medical practitioners who are taking on this immense challenge to get our highly vulnerable groups vaccinated quickly and efficiently.

“It has been a well-planned exercise and we are ready to scale up to do even more jabs in the coming weeks as we look to get all the most vulnerable people protected.

“I know that the Vaccines Task Force has done a superb job of buying enough vaccine for everyone and that three vaccines have now been approved. At the moment the only constraint is vaccine supply and I’ve encouraged local health chiefs to be ready to scale up further for more supply.

“The sooner we get the jabs into peoples’ arms the quicker we can get children back into school and start to re-open the economy.

“This is welcome news to share but I hope that we are able to build on this great start and get many more people protected as soon as possible.”