Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that covid-19 vaccines are utilised prior to reaching their expiry date.

Robust mitigations have been put in place to reduce wastage. Stock levels have been closely monitored at a regional, system and site level with deliveries adjusted accordingly. This includes keeping stock back in the supply chain and encouraging sites to reallocate stock at a local level, rather than draw from central stores. Vaccine deliveries have been carefully managed in line with site capacity, population density and available supply, to ensure that any vaccine being delivered would be used within as short a timeframe as possible.

Following recent discussions with Pfizer and the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, NHS England and NHS Improvement wrote to healthcare providers on 17 January 2022 setting out that certain unpunctured and undamaged Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines’ post thaw shelf-life has been extended from 31 days to 45 days.