GP practices in the Bristol area are prepared to start their swine flu vaccination programme – as soon as the vaccines turn up.

Surgeries will start to receive supplies from October 26 but it could take up to a month for every practice to receive their first allocation.

People with long-term medical conditions, such as asthma and diabetes, will receive vaccines for the H1N1 virus as soon as they arrive at surgeries.

The first group of vulnerable patients who will receive the jabs will be those aged six months to 65 years who are in the current "at risk" category for seasonal flu vaccines.

Pregnant women will then be invited for jabs, followed by people who live with those who have a compromised immune system.

The over-65s who are called for seasonal flu vaccinations will then be invited for the swine flu jabs.

The vaccination programme is due to be completed by Christmas.

Thousands of frontline hospital staff in the city will receive the jabs from the end of next week.

There have not been significant numbers of people suffering with swine flu in the Bristol area during the second wave of the outbreak.

NHS South Gloucestershire director of public health, Chris Payne, said there has been a north-south divide in terms of the highest number of reported cases but swine flu is definitely in the community.

Nationally, the number of deaths in the UK has gone up to 106, including six pregnant women.

Chief medical officer for England, Sir Liam Donaldson, has advised that while the virus is mild for most people, pregnant women had a higher risk of developing complications and should get the vaccine.

There were 27,000 more swine flu cases in England in the last week and statistics suggest that numbers are doubling every fortnight.

The version of the vaccine being made available to most people – Pandemrix – will only require one dose rather than the two that health bosses were expecting to administer. Children under the age of 10 will require two doses of the vaccine and people who are given Celvapan will also be given two jabs.

GP Simon Bradley of The Stokes Medical Centre, who also represents doctors in the wider Bristol area through the Avon Local Medical Committee, said that most practices have measures in place for the swine flu vaccination programme, but cannot start alerting patients because they cannot be sure when their batches of vaccine will arrive.

He said: "We have been thinking about this for a while and most practices have plans in place as to how they will do this when they get the vaccine. The planning has not been dissimilar from the seasonal influenza programme."

"The problem we have at the moment is that we do not know when we will get the vaccine. We have been told the earliest will be October 26 but it could take up to a month and presumably some practices will have the vaccine before others."

Dr Payne said: "Vaccination is the most effective means of beating this.

"Over the last century vaccinations have been really successful in abolishing a lot of infectious diseases in the world.

"There is no new technology in these vaccines and it is tried and tested."

Programme director for pandemic flu planning at NHS Bristol, Liam Williams, said: "In line with the rest of the country we are seeing a small increase in the number of cases. This increase is not putting any pressure on local services.

"We would like to take this opportunity to reiterate the need to maintain good personal hygiene in line with the Catch It, Bin It, Kill It campaign."

A research programme being carried out at Bristol Children's Hospital is still looking to recruit the final youngsters to test the swine flu vaccine.

Experts from Bristol University are working with colleagues around the country to establish which of the vaccines works best and to check if there are any side-effects.

Parents can still sign up to be part of the study at the children's hospital next weekend.

Children under three years are still needed for the research that will help the Government decide whether to roll out a vaccination programme to all children in the country.

Parents interested in enrolling their child in the study should visit www.swineflutrial.org or call 0117 342 0699 for further information.