A MEDICAL partnership of GPs in the New Forest will have administered 4,000 coronavirus vaccination doses by tomorrow.

Patients from the surgeries that make up the Coastal Medical Partnership are receiving their first jabs from the New Milton Health Centre in Spencer Road.

This includes patients from the Arnewood, Barton, New Milton Health Centre and Webb-Peploe surgeries after the group of practices was named as one of the early adopting sites for vaccinations.

A further 1,000-plus vaccinations were also carried out in one day in north Dorset.

But the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group has refused to reveal how many have been carried out across the county in total.

A spokesman said: "We are unable to give this information at the moment, however we are expecting data to be published in the next few weeks."

Within the Coastal Medical Partnership nearly all care home residents and staff from 20 homes have received the vaccine, as well as around half of the partnerships' patients who are aged over 80.

Posting an update on Facebook, a spokesperson for the partnership said: "By January 19 we will have completed 4,000 vaccines.

"We are keen to do as many as possible but are at the mercy of the supply chain, only being given a few days notice for stock arrival, so cannot book clinics or invite patients long in advance.

"When the government announced the change in delaying the second dose, we were about to vaccinate 975 patients with their second dose and could not have cancelled/ rebooked another 975 in the timeframe, though we did move the frontline staff to fit more first dose over 80s in.

"But from now on, we are doing first doses only, with second doses in 12 weeks time."

The spokesperson said there are 3,500 over 80s across the surgeries and called for residents to be patient and wait their turn to be contacted.

They added: "We have set up a booking line and invites are being sent out to contact the booking line by SMS, email or letter depending on what details we hold for you.

"Rest assured we are working as hard as we can on this, including running clinics in evenings and weekends, whilst also dealing with the day to day demands of winter pressures."

And more than 1,000 patients and NHS staff from two north Dorset GP practices were vaccinated against coronavirus in one day.

The clinic was the first held by Gillingham Medical Practice in association with The Blackmore Vale Partnership.

A spokesman for Gillingham Medical Practice said: "More clinics are being held this week for our 80+ patients. Please do no not call the surgery - we will contact you."