A mass coronavirus vaccination centre is in the final stages of preparation.

Work has been ongoing to prepare the P&J Live at TECA stadium, with the first jabs expected to take place from Monday February 1.

It is intended the majority of immunisations in Aberdeen will take place at the venue.

Project manager Clare Houston said: “P&J Live at TECA offers us enormous flexibility.

“The whole vaccination programme will have to adapt according to the supply of vaccine, approval of new vaccines and availability of staff; in this space we will be able to expand our provision without interrupting existing clinics.

“We have consciously decided to start on a smaller scale to allow us to ‘bed in’ but have the potential to vaccinate many thousands of people each day when operating at full capacity.

“It is important to stress that this will not be a ‘drop-in’ facility. People will be offered appointments here in the same way that they will be offered appointments at any vaccination clinic.

“Wherever possible, we need the general public to help us by accepting the appointment they are given.

“While we will always try to accommodate individual choice, this is the biggest mass vaccination programme the UK has ever seen and we need people to make the necessary arrangements to attend the appointment issued.”

It comes after Scotland's national clinical advisor Professor Jason Leitch has urged patience for those still awaiting a letter about vaccine plans.

"We're coming"

Prof Leitch told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland that those expecting a letter should be patient and "hold their nerve."

He said: “Wait for a couple of weeks for us, particularly if you're in the over 70s group. I know it's really difficult.

“My parents were very, very impatient for the three weeks before they got a phone call, and then suddenly they got a call last Wednesday and were vaccinated on Thursday.

“So people just need to hold their nerve a little bit.”

He added: “It would be nice if we could send all five million appointments all beautifully staged, but we just don't know about supply. So we are just going to ask people to wait until we get in touch. We're coming.”

Yesterday, the Scottish Government said 404,038 people have received their first dose of the coronavirus vaccine, up by 23,371 from the previous day.

A total of 5,383 people have had their second dose.

Asked about supplies of the vaccine going to GPs in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon said issues were “smoothing out and starting to be resolved”.

She told The Andrew Marr Show: “We have had the rate limitation of the number of packs coming into Scotland which has limited supply to GPs.

“On this question of whether there is a more bureaucratic system in Scotland, I don’t think that’s the case.

“Although we will always look to see what we can do to simplify that.”

She added: “We took a deliberate decision in line with JCVI advice to focus initially on vaccinating older residents of care homes.”

She continued: “I heard Matt Hancock on the programme earlier say that about three quarters of care home residents in England had been vaccinated, in Scotland that figure right now is 95% of care home residents.”

The First Minister said this approach was more “resource intensive” and Scotland was now “rapidly catching up” on vaccinating over-80s in the community.

She added: “We’re all working to the same targets, overall I think we will see that we all are making good progress through this vaccination programme.”