Everyone aged 18 and over will be able to book their COVID-19 vaccine in England from Friday.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock made the announcement during a speech in which he praised the vaccination programme as "an incredible achievement".

It comes as cases are said to be rising exponentially across England, with the latest estimates putting the R number at 1.44.

The number of COVID-19 infections is doubling every 11 days, according to data from the REACT-1 study by scientists at Imperial College London, who said their findings showed a "rapid switch" from the Alpha (Kent) variant to the Delta variant, first detected in India

The research found the exponential increase in prevalence is being driven by infections among younger people.

And the latest weekly surveillance report from Public Health England (PHE) shows COVID-19 case rates in all regions of England are continuing to rise.

PHE said infections among all age groups are going up, with the highest rate among 20 to 29-year-olds, where there were 195.9 cases per 100,000 people in the seven days to 13 June.

(With input from agencies)