THE Secretary of State for Scotland has written to Nicola Sturgeon to offer help “accelerating” Scotland’s vaccine roll-out.

Alister Jack’s offer comes after the First Minister told MSPs that Scotland yesterday vaccinated almost 35,000 people, a record-breaking number.

Sturgeon also said that more than 98% of Scottish care home residents and at least 83% of over-80s have already received the Covid jag.

In his letter, Jack said that the “mission to vaccinate the people of the United Kingdom is the most important peacetime endeavour this country has ever undertaken”.

READ MORE: Scotland's vaccine record broken as 35,000 people get jag in one day

He claims that “nothing matters more” than the jag roll-out and the opportunity it provides for the UK to “exit lockdown together”.

Jack goes on: “I’m sure you will agree with me that it is in everyone’s interests that progress in vaccinating the people of Scotland matches the best efforts of the rest of the UK.

“With that in mind, we stand ready to offer any support or assistance we can give you to accelerate your roll-out programme.”

He says that Matt Hancock, the UK Health Secretary, and Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, are ready to offer Scotland any aid it may need.

The final paragraphs of the letter list the contributions of the UK Government and military to the vaccine roll-out and testing programme.

Commenting on the letter, Tory MSP Annie Wells claimed that Scotland’s roll-out had been “sluggish”.

Wells tweeted: “As part of the United Kingdom, we help one another in times of need.

I'm glad the UK Government has stepped up to offer much needed assistance to the SNP Government to help speed up Scotland's sluggish vaccine roll-out.”

However, national clinical director Jason Leitch told the BBC that the slower rate in Scotland was because the nation had chosen a more “person-centred” approach to vaccinations.

The National:

He said: “We decided to do the over-80s, and some people think this wasn’t the right thing to do, but we decided to do the over-80s in their own practices, where they would know their nurses and where they would know their GPs, where they would be close to home and not make them travel to bigger centres.

“Other countries have done that differently. That’s a choice about person-centred vaccinations.”

Leitch added: “We agree, we do need to be doing it faster. That’s why now we’ve gone down a level to the people who are a little bit more mobile [like the over-70s], they are now being done in big vaccination centres or semi-big vaccination centres that will be a little bit of a journey from home.”

He said the shift means that we'll see “many many more [Covid jags] being done this weekend”.

The First Minister echoed those points in Holyrood. She told MSPs: “Vaccinating the most vulnerable to the greatest extent possible is really important, even if it takes more time to do so. It will help to save more lives.

“All of that said, though, it is clearly the case that overall volumes matter too – and that leads to my second point.

READ MORE: Jason Leitch: Scottish Covid jag roll-out followed 'person-centred' approach

“As we make more use of mass vaccination centres for the younger age groups, we expect the daily rate to also increase."

The latest figures show that England has vaccinated 17.8% of its adult population. Wales is reportedly on 16.1%, Northern Ireland on 14.8%, and Scotland on 12.7%.

England claims to have “offered” the Covid vaccine to 100% of care home residents.

This was seemingly misinterpreted by Scottish Tories including MP John Lamont, who yesterday claimed: “England has now completed their care home roll-out and Scotland is still well behind.”

The First Minister today highlighted that Scotland’s achievement of having vaccinated 98% of care home residents is very different to having simply “offered” people the jag.

READ MORE: IN FULL: Nicola Sturgeon's statement to MSPs about extending Covid lockdown

Sturgeon also yesterday hit out at Scottish Secretary Alister Jack for revealing details of the country’s Covid vaccine supply – just hours after he promised not to.

On Sunday, the Scotland Secretary told the BBC that 981,000 doses had been allocated to Scotland so far but only 573,907 had been used.

However, speaking at the regular coronavirus briefing, the First Minister revealed there had been agreement on a four nations call held on Saturday “that nobody would do that”.

Earlier this month, the Scottish Government was forced to withdraw its vaccine deployment plan because it included the figures for weekly supplies from the manufacturers Pfizer, AstraZeneca and Moderna.

The Department of Health said the information was commercially confidential.

A Scottish Government spokesperson said: “As the First Minister made very clear in Parliament, we set out to vaccinate the most vulnerable and that’s what we have achieved even though it takes more time to do so.

“Having achieved greater depth in the programme than in England we are continuing to accelerate the rollout overall, which the figures bear out. 

“On Monday, 55% more people in Scotland received their first dose than the same day the previous week, compared with an increase of only 19.4% in England over the same period. 

“Monday also saw our highest daily figure for first doses - 35,000 people in Scotland were vaccinated, which was proportionately over 28% higher than the number vaccinated in England on the same day. We anticipate the overall trend in the daily rate will increase as we make more use of mass vaccination centres for the younger age groups.

“That’s testament to the work of NHS Scotland, our local authority partners and volunteers with the assistance of British Red Cross and other community volunteer organisations and we are grateful for their efforts.

“Data from our Vaccinations Management Tool shows a pool of close to 11,000 trained vaccinators, alongside management information for the current week indicating around 1300 support staff for deployment.”