Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many NHS Trust maternity services offer pregnant women vaccinations in their antenatal clinics; and whether the NHS has plans to roll this out to all maternity services.

Pregnant women are offered vaccinations for flu, pertussis (whooping cough) and COVID-19. Data on the number of maternity services offering these vaccinations within antenatal clinics is not held centrally.

During the 2021/22 flu season, almost all trusts in England with maternity services can offer flu vaccinations to pregnant women. We aim to achieve 100% of trusts offering the vaccination in 2022/23. All general practitioner (GP) services and over 9,500 community pharmacists can offer flu vaccinations to pregnant women in the 2021/22 flu season.

All GP services offer pregnant women vaccination against pertussis as part of a national programme. It can also be offered by trusts with maternity services on a regionally commissioned basis, where uptake rates are otherwise lower.

To maximise uptake of COVID-19 vaccinations in pregnancy, the National Health Service has worked with a range of stakeholders to support access to vaccination within the antenatal pathway. On 25 January 2022, maternity services and system vaccination leads were asked to ensure that every woman attending a maternity service has access to COVID-19 vaccinations within the maternity service or a walk-in vaccination service elsewhere on the same site.