The Hawks Road Clinic in Kingston opens as one of four new mass vaccination centres administering jabs against Covid-19 in London this week.

The NHS site becomes the first "mass vaccination" site in the borough, following smaller clinics in the borough plus Kingston Hospital that are already administering Covid-19 vaccinations.

On Monday (January 25), NHS England lauded the ramping up of the government's massive drive to vaccinate millions of citizens against coronavirus.

"Four new large NHS Vaccination Centres will start delivering live-saving Covid jabs this week as the health service in London continues to accelerate the biggest immunisation programme in its history," a spokesperson said.

One of those is Kingston's Hawks Road site, with the other large centres including Hornsey Central Neighbourhood Health Centre at Crouch End, the Westfield Stratford City (an old Ikea and Dwell retail unit) and the Francis Crick Institute near Kings Cross.

"It will mean that more than 190 vaccination services will be operating across the capital by the end of the week," NHS England added.

Dr Vin Diwakar, medical director for the NHS in London offered his praise of the health service's vaccination roll-out in the capital:

"It is testament to the tireless work of NHS staff across the capital that well over half a million vaccinations have already been given, providing safe, effective and well-tested protection against Covid-19 to Londoners in the vulnerable groups," he said.

"These new centres provide another option for people invited for their jabs, alongside the fantastic work of GPs and pharmacies in London, and we’re opening more sites all the time.

"The capital continues to be severely affected by the pandemic so it is important that all Londoners, wherever possible, stay home to help save lives," he added.

For information about the Covid-19 vaccine, click here.