Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage the take-up of flu vaccination in people with chronic respiratory disease.
Answered by Steve Brine
Encouraging take-up of the flu vaccination in people with chronic respiratory disease is primarily a matter for Public Health England (PHE). PHE, in partnership with NHS England, is currently running the national multi-channel campaign ‘Stay Well This Winter’, which encourages people who are most at-risk of preventable emergency admission to hospital to take actions to help them stay well, such as getting a flu vaccination and visiting a pharmacy at the first sign of a winter illness.
Television adverts encourage people with long-term health conditions including breathlessness and lung disease to get the flu vaccine. The radio and social media advertising specifically target people with chronic lung diseases, including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, bronchitis and asthma. PHE also works with the British Lung Foundation and Asthma UK to help promote flu vaccine take-up to their supporters.
Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential relationship between the uptake of the flu vaccination in people with chronic respiratory disease and hospital admission rates for people with that disease.
Answered by Steve Brine
Public Health England (PHE) is responsible for monitoring public health vaccination programmes, including the influenza vaccine programme. It particularly monitors vaccine uptake, effectiveness and safety.
Hospital admissions in persons with chronic respiratory disease are due to a wide range of causes, one of which can be flu. No study has been undertaken on the potential relationship between uptake of the flu vaccine in people with chronic respiratory disease and hospital admissions for people with chronic respiratory disease. However, PHE flu vaccine uptake monitoring has shown that the group 16-65 years of age with chronic respiratory disease had an uptake of 49.1% in 2016/17. There was an estimated flu vaccine effectiveness of 40.6% in this age-group against laboratory confirmed influenza, which would include individuals with chronic respiratory disease.
Asked by: Lord Bellingham (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what information his Department holds on (a) the number and (b) which slaughterhouses do not have comprehensive CCTV installed on their premises.
Answered by Steve Brine
In May 2016 the Food Standards Agency carried out a CCTV survey in all 278 operating slaughterhouses in England and Wales.
The results from this survey showed:
- 102 out of 207 red meat slaughterhouses (49.3%) and 50 out of 71 white meat slaughterhouses (70.4%) had some form of CCTV in use for animal welfare purposes.
In respect of which slaughterhouses do not have comprehensive CCTV installed on its premises, this information is commercially sensitive and cannot be released.