The NHS website for booking vaccination appointments crashed on Tuesday morning after those aged over 45 were allowed to receive a jab.
A message on the website said: “The NHS website is currently experiencing technical difficulties.
“We are working to resolve these issues. Thank you for your patience.”
Other users reported being placed in a queue, with a holding screen which read: “You are in a queue. Lots of people trying to book an appointment.”
People over the age of 45 can now book their Covid-19 jab.
The NHS booking website has updated to say that people aged 45 and over can now book a vaccine.
It signals the start of ‘Phase 2’ of the vaccination programme – which involves offering vaccines to healthy adults under the age of 50.
Until now the NHS in England had been focusing on offering vaccines to those at highest risk including people over the age of 50 and people deemed to be “clinically extremely vulnerable”.
Chris Hopson, chief executive of NHS Providers, said that, despite the success of the UK vaccine rollout, people should not assume the country is on a “one-way, inexorable, inevitable track to it all being fantastic”.
“I know I might sound a bit like a prophet of doom the day after we’ve started enabling people to go back to the pub garden, but the reality is there are … really good reasons why we need to be cautious here,” he told Sky News.
“We need to be really careful about assuming we’re on a one-way, inexorable, inevitable track to it all being fantastic and we can go back to normal, because actually we’ll need a new normal.”
He added: “We need everyone to put their own personal pedal to the metal and ensure they follow the rules.”
