THE manager of a Crewe vaccine centre based in a motorbike dealership says he is ready to increase the number of jabs being administered.

Raj Patel revealed 10,000 people in the priority groups have received their vaccinations at three centres run by his pharmacy business Hollowood Chemists over the last three weeks.

He was speaking as the novel location for the centre at Crewe Honda Centre drew a breakfast TV audience today (Monday).

ITV's Good Morning Britain cameras were at the West Street premises as part of a live link feeding into a national coronavirus/vaccine news item.

Raj said: "We have been extremely busy in all three of our sites with appointments up all week in advance.

"In the last three weeks we've done 10,000 vaccinations and in terms of capacity we can do it in a week if we get the vaccines available."

Bike shop MD Roger Morris converted his showroom into a Covid-19 vaccination centre last month after being approached by Raj, whose pharmacy is across the road.

The premises, which has been in the Morris family for more than 100 years, was undergoing a renovation at the time when Raj asked his friend for help after Hollowood was chosen as one of the pharmacy outlets for rolling out the vaccine.

The site was approved by NHS England and Cheshire Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) and has been dispensing up to 1,200 jabs a week in Crewe.

Raj was interviewed on air by correspondent Kate Hemingway for the national breakfast television show.

And there will be more TV exposure tonight when interviews with Mr Morris and Clinical Lead Jainil Patel, who is Raj's son, are aired on Granada Reports.

Raj and Roger jointly said: "This is a perfect combination of how a motorcycle showroom and a pharmacy have worked together to create a vaccination centre for the community in Crewe."

After reaching a milestone 15 million vaccinations NHS England has sent out one million invites to the over-65s to make appointments for their jabs, with a similar number of invites due to go out this week.

The Crewe centre is one of three vaccination centres being operated by Hollowood Chemists with the other two being in Greater Manchester.