Chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson has urged all priority groups to take up the offer of swine flu vaccination

Health Secretary Andy Burnham has launched a mass immunisation programme against swine flu with a call to front-line health and social care workers to get themselves vaccinated against the virus.

Mr Burnham praised the "leadership" of frontline healthcare staff at University College Hospital in London who lined up to receive the vaccinations.

"The people today who are volunteering are showing real leadership, they are sending a clear message out to people working in the health service that it is the right thing to do," Mr Burnham said.

The Prime Minister told the Commons that the UK had been "ahead of the world" in taking measures to combat swine flu, and welcomed the start of vaccinations.

In a joint statement from the British Medical Association and the Royal College of General Practitioners amongst others, staff were told it had been "thoroughly tested".

Dr Daniel Farrar, a 40-year-old consultant anaesthetist at the hospital, who lives in Wimbledon, south-west London, was the first person, outside of clinical trials, to receive the vaccine in England.

The married father of three children, originally from Jarrow, near Newcastle, said the vaccination would help protect staff from transmitting the virus to patients.

He said: "We (anaesthetists) see a whole range of patient groups, we see well patients, going through planned operations, but we also see sick patients on intensive care units, and we deal with children as well, and parents."

The programme, offering more than 11 million people the vaccine, began with hospitals immunising frontline healthcare workers and their patients who fall into at-risk categories.

About two million frontline health and social care workers will be offered the vaccine, as they are classified as at increased risk of infection and of transmitting the infection to susceptible patients. The programme will be extended over the coming weeks with GP surgeries receiving deliveries from Monday.