COVID-19 vaccinations are now being given at Newcastle’s Centre for Life.

The city centre science hub has become the latest location where the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is being administered to certain people in high priority groups.

The Centre for Life was listed over the weekend as being among the venues in England that are due to be used as mass vaccination centres as more and more people are able to be given the jabs.

However, the site is currently only being utilised as an offshoot of the ‘hospital hub’ vaccination programme which began at the Royal Victoria Infirmary last week, one of only two North East hospitals giving the jabs alongside Middlesbrough’s James Cook Hospital.

Vaccinations started at the Centre for Life, which is next to Central Station, on Tuesday and it is understood that they are currently only being offered there to care home workers – with people urged not to turn up unless they have been invited for an appointment.

Neil Watson, chief operating officer for the Covid Vaccine Programme for the North East and North Cumbria, said: “As part of our hospital hub at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, and in line with national guidance, we are starting to vaccinate social care staff from across the region.

“We’re using the Centre for Life in order to best manage capacity and footfall, and have less traffic on the hospital sites.

“This is to complement the vaccination services that have started this week in primary care networks who are starting with patients over 80 years old.

“In the meantime, it’s really important that people wait to be invited to be vaccinated.

“The NHS will let you know when it’s your turn to have the vaccine. Please do not to contact the NHS for a vaccination before then.”

Tuesday also saw GPs in different parts of the region begin giving the vaccine to patients aged-80 and over who have received a letter inviting them for an appointment, as 15 GP-led community vaccination centres opened across the North East and Cumbria.

The first vaccines in Sunderland were delivered at Grindon Lane Primary Care centre, where around 300 doses a day will be administered.

Longbenton has become the first area of North Tyneside where the vaccine is being rolled out, while a vaccination programme will be launched in South Tyneside on Wednesday.

Race relations campaigner Hari Shukla, 87, became the first person to get the vaccine at the RVI last week, along with his wife Ranjan.

A total of 400,000 people will be injected as a priority in the RVI’s initial rollout of the vaccine because they are either over 80, live or work in a care home, or are an NHS worker with poor underlying health or whose work puts them at higher risk.