NICOLA Sturgeon has said people worried about not getting their Covid jag on time should contact her directly as she U-turned on advice over the vaccination helpline.

“Email me if you want to, and we will look into it,” she said, after admitting the number she told people to call yesterday was for general not “person-specific advice”.

It followed criticism of the First Minister telling people to use the free vaccination helpline after being asked at FMQs about some over-70s still waiting for appointments.

The Scottish Government target is for all over-70s and the clinically extremely vulnerable to be vaccinated against coronavirus by February 15.

Ms Sturgeon told told MSPs on Wednesday: “Anyone who is in a priority group and who is worried about not having had an appointment yet can contact the vaccination helpline. 

“I think that the information has already been given to all MSPs, but I repeat it for the benefit of people watching. 

“If anyone is worried about their appointment or not having had their letter yet, they can phone the helpline on,” and she then read 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. 

Labour said Ms Sturgeon needed to “get a grip” of the situation as it shared complaints from people who found the number Ms Sturgeon quoted to be useless.

At the daily briefing today, Ms Sturgeon backtracked on her previous advice to call the helpline.

Asked where people should take their queries, she said: “If anybody is worried about not having received an appointment there’s a variety of ways. 

“I appreciate the helpline is there for general advice. It can’t give person-specific advice.

“Although we are looking to see quickly whether we can hook the helpline up to the overall system, so that it might be able to give more personalised advice. 

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“But you can contact your health board, you can contact your MSP.

“My office will immediately no doubt express their displeasure at what I’m about to say as soon as I go off this stage - email me if you want to, and we will look into it, if you’re worried about not having an appointment.

“But you will get an appointment. We’re not going to miss people. 

“[In] any big system there will be administrative glitches here and there, but we’re not going to miss you. You’re going to be vaccinated as part of this programme.

“So feel free to get in touch if you’re worried that you might have been missed and we’ll be able to hopefully reassure you.” 

The SNP and Holyrood websites list Ms Sturgeon’s contact email as Nicola.Sturgeon.msp@parliament.scot.

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Interim Scottish Labour leader Jackie Baillie, whose questions to Ms Sturgeon prompted her to give out the helpline number at FMQs, said she had been “inundated with emails” from people who called the number and were told they should try their health board instead. 

She said: “The First Minister said in the chamber that ‘nothing is going wrong’ with the vaccine roll-out - and yet when anxious pensioners rang the helpline the First Minister personally directed them towards, they have been left none the wiser.  

“Our dedicated and hardworking GP surgery and helpline staff clearly do not have the information they need to be able to provide clarity or reassurance on the vaccine rollout. “That’s not good enough – and the First Minister needs to get a grip.”