Police and teachers will not jump to the head of the queue in the second phase of Britain’s Covid-19 vaccination rollout, with people instead prioritised by age, according to officials advising the government who described this as the best way to keep up the pace of immunisations.

Some frontline workers such as police and teachers had been calling for their prioritisation on the basis of their jobs, but Professor Wei Shen Lim, Covid-19 chairman for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, said such an approach could complicate the rollout.

“Following an age-based programme will be simple, and simplicity has been one of the cornerstones of the current programme in terms of speed and its success,” he told a news conference.