More than 3,000 Dorset Council and care home staff will have been vaccinated locally against Covid by the end of this week.

Adult social care brief holder Councillor Laura Miller said that by the end of the week, working with Dorset County Hospital, it is estimated that around 3,200 staff and associated care workers will have been vaccinated.

She said that adult social care front line workers are been vaccinated as a priority along with other social care and transport staff from Dorset Council, and had made a start on booking in domiciliary staff.

"We have worked really hard to get our care home staff vaccinated as the priority, but the domiciliary staff are really important too, because they are supporting people in their own homes," she said.

"The situation from our workforce point of view has been going really well."

Dorset County Hospital was selected as one of the first 'hubs' to receive the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine when it was first rolled out.

Since then, the Atrium Healthcare Centre in Dorchester has been selected to be at the centre of Dorset's mass distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine.

A total of 1,166 vaccines were given at the Atrium Healthcare Centre last weekend, with more than 700 of those in the most vulnerable category vaccinated in the first 12 hours of the programme.

Clinical director Dr Jenny Bubb, who usually works at Cerne Abbas GP surgery, said: "We've just been desperate to get going and help reduce hospital admissions."

Cllr Miller said some people might be offered vaccinations at the Bournemouth International Centre which was being used as a local hub, although people did not have to take the offer up and could wait to attend a centre more local to them.

She said it was hoped to produce regular, easily understandable, information about the rate of local vaccinations, but this might depend on the pressure of work.

Cllr Miller said she had volunteered to help at a local centre and had discovered that no vaccinations were being wasted with the centre having a list of NHS staff they were able to call on at short notice for inoculation, and once that had been exhausted jabs were offered to volunteers.