Respiratory Syncytial Virus Immunisation

Baroness Pinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My noble friend is clearly up to date. She is absolutely right that the NHS constantly looks for innovations. For RSV, the offer in place for 2023-24 is for the specialised commissioning for NHS purchases of monoclonal antibodies directly from the manufacturers. The NHS delegates price and delivery with the manufacturers. For national immunisation programmes, the UK Health Security Agency procures immunisation products centrally, but I reassure the House that the NHS does all it can to make sure that it is aware of new developments to incorporate in the vaccination programmes.

[Baroness Pinnock (LD)]

My Lords, in the last week, the Minister may have seen financial reports about the challenges facing some vaccine manufacturers, now that the Covid demand is much reduced. What do the Government intend to do to ensure that we have capacity in the UK to develop new vaccines at scale in response to this and any other future challenge?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

There are ongoing conversations with the manufacturers of various antibodies and vaccines for the year 2023-24. I am not familiar with the companies that the noble Baroness referred to, but I am very happy to look into them.