Childhood Vaccinations Committee
Monday 6th July 2026
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14:18
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Welcome to today's meeting. This is the 19th oral evidence session as part of the committee's inquiry into childhood vaccination rates in England. It is actually our last oral evidence session. Thank you to Sharon Hodgson MP, the Minister in charge of these issues, for joining us today. And Catherine Francis and Caroline Temminck for attending the session is open to the public. It's broadcast live and it will subsequently be available on the parliamentary website. A verbatim transcript will be taken of the evidence and will be published on the parliamentary website.
A few days after the session, you will be sent a copy of the transcript to check for accuracy, and it would be very helpful to us if you could advise us of any changes and send it back as soon as possible. If after this evidence session, you want to clarify or amplify any points made during our evidence or anything that we've asked you for. In addition, um, perhaps you would send it back to us as soon as you can. I'd be most grateful. So the first question and to remind you to introduce yourselves when you answer it is pretty obvious really.
Are the government and the NHS doing enough to reverse the decline in childhood vaccination rates and to tackle and reduce inequalities?And how do you measure the success of the government's action to improve childhood vaccination coverage and reduce inequalities, including progress against the 2023 NHS vaccination strategy?And will you commit to reporting on progress against the strategy to Parliament periodically?Minister, would you like to start?I will, um and.
A few days after the session, you will be sent a copy of the transcript to check for accuracy, and it would be very helpful to us if you could advise us of any changes and send it back as soon as possible. If after this evidence session, you want to clarify or amplify any points made during our evidence or anything that we've asked you for. In addition, um, perhaps you would send it back to us as soon as you can. I'd be most grateful. So the first question and to remind you to introduce yourselves when you answer it is pretty obvious really.
Are the government and the NHS doing enough to reverse the decline in childhood vaccination rates and to tackle and reduce inequalities?And how do you measure the success of the government's action to improve childhood vaccination coverage and reduce inequalities, including progress against the 2023 NHS vaccination strategy?And will you commit to reporting on progress against the strategy to Parliament periodically?Minister, would you like to start?I will, um and.
14:20
Speaker 2
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Speaker 2
Good afternoon everyone. It's a pleasure to serve, to come along and give evidence to your committee. And thank you, Baroness Walmsley. I'm Sharon Hodgson, the Minister for Public Health and Prevention. Um, and yes, this is um a a major issue and it's a major priority for the government and newly coming into this role. Um, just four months ago now, I, um, had to sit down and um, everything is a priority, but my team told me I had to try and focus and prioritise and come up with a list of a few things.
I got that list to nine. So then we had to put them into tears and immunisation came under tier one priority for me. This really is something that I really want to focus on during my time in this role because it is so, so important and it is a challenge that has been a decline globally, not just in the UK but specifically here over the last ten years. Um, and the, the, the rates of vaccine immunisation vaccinations, when you look at all the graphs and the tables and everything that officials show me, um, show that decline is worst in some of our most deprived areas, as I'm sure you're aware, you'll have had the evidence on this and see it for yourselves also.
So that really did drive me to make this one of my key priority areas. Um, the health inequalities we see in some of our poorer communities, um, is, is still shocking. It's something the government's determined to turn around. And part of that, there's so many parts now I know we do so much work on food and, um, obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food. Another part of it, and part of that, there's so many parts now. We do so much work on food and, um, obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food.
Another part to turn around. I. Manifesto commitment to have the healthiest generation of children, food and obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food. Another part of it is obviously helping keep children healthy and immunisations, um, not just healthy, but alive in some cases also, um, immunisations and to turn around, I manifesto commitment to have the healthiest generation of children ever. And part of that, there's so many parts now I know we do so much work on food and obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food.
Another part of it is obviously helping keep children healthy and immunisations, um, not just healthy, but alive in some cases. Also, um, immunisations are so, so important. And um, so we really are doing everything we can to turn that around. Um, huge investment. And I'll hand over to officials to give you some of the drill down on some of that information for you, but huge investment, um, working with GPS, community pharmacies. Um, and to, to really shift that dial and, um, I am going to make it a huge focus.
There's no one thing, there's no silver bullet. Um, you know, it's got to be around access awareness in the system. There's digital issues to drive up. Um, vaccination coverage and all stuff around data. And I know we're going to come on to all of that, but, um, for some of the detail, I think I'll hand over to Catherine.
I got that list to nine. So then we had to put them into tears and immunisation came under tier one priority for me. This really is something that I really want to focus on during my time in this role because it is so, so important and it is a challenge that has been a decline globally, not just in the UK but specifically here over the last ten years. Um, and the, the, the rates of vaccine immunisation vaccinations, when you look at all the graphs and the tables and everything that officials show me, um, show that decline is worst in some of our most deprived areas, as I'm sure you're aware, you'll have had the evidence on this and see it for yourselves also.
So that really did drive me to make this one of my key priority areas. Um, the health inequalities we see in some of our poorer communities, um, is, is still shocking. It's something the government's determined to turn around. And part of that, there's so many parts now I know we do so much work on food and, um, obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food. Another part of it, and part of that, there's so many parts now. We do so much work on food and, um, obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food.
Another part to turn around. I. Manifesto commitment to have the healthiest generation of children, food and obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food. Another part of it is obviously helping keep children healthy and immunisations, um, not just healthy, but alive in some cases also, um, immunisations and to turn around, I manifesto commitment to have the healthiest generation of children ever. And part of that, there's so many parts now I know we do so much work on food and obesity and healthy food and the access to that healthy food.
Another part of it is obviously helping keep children healthy and immunisations, um, not just healthy, but alive in some cases. Also, um, immunisations are so, so important. And um, so we really are doing everything we can to turn that around. Um, huge investment. And I'll hand over to officials to give you some of the drill down on some of that information for you, but huge investment, um, working with GPS, community pharmacies. Um, and to, to really shift that dial and, um, I am going to make it a huge focus.
There's no one thing, there's no silver bullet. Um, you know, it's got to be around access awareness in the system. There's digital issues to drive up. Um, vaccination coverage and all stuff around data. And I know we're going to come on to all of that, but, um, for some of the detail, I think I'll hand over to Catherine.
14:24
Speaker 1
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Speaker 1
Catherine. We're very particularly interested in how you measure progress. Yes. Thank you. So, um, for the committee. My name is Catherine Francis. I'm the director general of public health and global health and emergencies in DHS. And I also head up our vaccination function as part of that. Um, so your question about how you measure success, I think ultimately success has to be in the numbers. So success actually has to be achieving a level of vaccine uptake.
Um, which for those areas of vaccination where we're trying to achieve herd immunity and the protection that that implies, we want to get up to those requisite levels in other areas. And we'll drill down into this maybe a little further on with vaccinating for slightly different reasons, maybe to slightly reduce the exposure to other members of the population. For example, flu for children is, is more focused on that. Um, your question then are we doing enough?I think we'll cover this over the course of today.
Hopefully, we're really focusing on four key areas. So the first area that we're focusing on is the issue of access. Um, time and again we have a lot of evidence that parents of children tell us that accessing services, whether via GPS or via schools, is absolutely critical. And so investing in those big universal services is central to our strategy. We think it will help with inequality. And you'll have heard that we are also diversifying on top of that and trialling some of the ways of getting vaccines to people.
The second big piece of work for us is around improving accountability. And as we go through system change, particularly in the NHS, it's very important to us that everybody knows exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it, so we can cover some of that today. The third big piece of work for us, chair, if I might take the liberty of covering it, is to improve our digital and our data systems. We operate in a relatively fragmented context. When we think about vaccination, but we've been making a huge amount of progress right now, modernising our digital and data systems, which we think is fundamental to improving access to information, both for practitioners and parents.
And lastly, we're focusing on communication. That's both universal communication, but also that which works for different communities, some of which needs to happen quite locally. Thank you very much. And would you like to carry on?From where Catherine stopped, Caroline.
Um, which for those areas of vaccination where we're trying to achieve herd immunity and the protection that that implies, we want to get up to those requisite levels in other areas. And we'll drill down into this maybe a little further on with vaccinating for slightly different reasons, maybe to slightly reduce the exposure to other members of the population. For example, flu for children is, is more focused on that. Um, your question then are we doing enough?I think we'll cover this over the course of today.
Hopefully, we're really focusing on four key areas. So the first area that we're focusing on is the issue of access. Um, time and again we have a lot of evidence that parents of children tell us that accessing services, whether via GPS or via schools, is absolutely critical. And so investing in those big universal services is central to our strategy. We think it will help with inequality. And you'll have heard that we are also diversifying on top of that and trialling some of the ways of getting vaccines to people.
The second big piece of work for us is around improving accountability. And as we go through system change, particularly in the NHS, it's very important to us that everybody knows exactly what they're doing and why they're doing it, so we can cover some of that today. The third big piece of work for us, chair, if I might take the liberty of covering it, is to improve our digital and our data systems. We operate in a relatively fragmented context. When we think about vaccination, but we've been making a huge amount of progress right now, modernising our digital and data systems, which we think is fundamental to improving access to information, both for practitioners and parents.
And lastly, we're focusing on communication. That's both universal communication, but also that which works for different communities, some of which needs to happen quite locally. Thank you very much. And would you like to carry on?From where Catherine stopped, Caroline.
14:27
Speaker 3
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Speaker 3
Just to add on the on the measuring point. So we have the target set to us by the W, h, O, and we are committed to going back up and hitting those levels. We will continue to publish the data on our progress working with Ukhsa to make sure we're monitoring that, but particularly thinking about health inequalities. So as the minister has said, a lot of that uptake has dropped predominantly in the most deprived populations. So therefore run just measuring the overall uptake.
We are also focusing on on narrowing that gap to make sure that we not only improve uptake for some people, but for everybody.
We are also focusing on on narrowing that gap to make sure that we not only improve uptake for some people, but for everybody.
14:27