DOCTORS and nurses at a hospital were among the first NHS staff in the region to be vaccinated against swine flu yesterday.

One of the first consignments of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine arrived at The University Hospital of North Tees, in Stockton, yesterday morning.

It meant that nurses training to administer the vaccine were able to immunise each other straight away.

Supplies of the vaccine are expected to be delivered to other hospitals in the region by the end of this week.

Among the first to be vaccinated in the North-East was the medical director of North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust, Dr Peter Gill.

The consignment of 1,500 Pandemrix flu vaccines will be used to vaccinate key health workers at the trust, which runs hospitals in Stockton and Hartlepool. The first group to be immunised includes doctors and nurses working in intensive care, paediatrics and the accident and emergency department.

A trust spokeswoman said: “We were training people to be ward and department vaccinators when the vaccines arrived.

It meant that they could immunise each other as part of their training.”

On Tuesday it was announced that 100,000 frontline health and social care workers in the region will be offered the vaccine in the next few weeks.

Officials at the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, which runs hospitals in Darlington, Durham City and Bishop Auckland, said they were expecting their supply of H1N1 vaccine to arrive by the end of the week.

A spokesman said: “We are doing weekly updates, telling staff who will be eligible first.

It is people who have direct contact with patients.”

South Tees Hospitals NHS Trust, which runs The James Cook University Hospital, in Middlesbrough, and The Friarage Hospital, in Northallerton, North Yorkshire, is expecting to receive its first consignment of vaccines today.

A spokeswoman for the South Tees trust said: “The vaccination will be done by our occupational health teams, but we have also trained 60 nursing volunteers who can be called on as and when to help us.”

She said priority staff who will receive the vaccine ahead of their colleagues had already been informed, and said: “We expect to start vaccinating staff next week.”

Supplies of the vaccine will be delivered to GP surgeries across the region next week.

Patients due to receive the vaccine as a priority will be contacted directly by their surgery.