Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 2nd December 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether self-employed physiotherapists providing patient-facing services under contract to GPs will have access to the covid-19 vaccination in the same priority cohort as NHS employees.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 15th January 2021

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) consists of independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccine/s the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level. The JCVI has advised that the first priorities for any COVID-19 vaccination programme should be the prevention of COVID-19 mortality and the protection of health and social care staff and systems.

Therefore, in line with the recommendations of the JCVI, the vaccine will be initially rolled out to priority groups, including frontline health and social care workers who are at increased personal risk of exposure to infection with COVID-19 and of transmitting that infection to susceptible and vulnerable patients in health and social care settings.

The COVID-19 chapter in the Green Book: Immunisation against infectious disease sets out further information defining those groups of health and social care workers that should be offered the COVID-19 vaccine. This includes physiotherapists and other healthcare staff providing direct patient care in independent, voluntary and non-standard healthcare settings. The COVID-19 chapter in the green book is available at:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-the-green-book-chapter-14a

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