Vaccination: Expenditure
(asked on 10th April 2026) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much was spent by NHS England on (a) each Section 7A service, (b) immunisation programmes within Section 7A services, (c) childhood immunisations within Section 7A services and (d) school-age immunisations within Section 7A services under the National Health Service Act 2006 in each financial year since 2019-20.
Funding for public health functions delegated by my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, to NHS England, known as section 7A services, is allocated as part of NHS England’s mandate funding total. The following table shows the spend for section 7A services by NHS England for the financial years 2019/20, 2020/21, 2021/22, 2022/23, and 2023/24:
Section 7A service area/programme | 2019/20 (£, million) | 2020/21 (£, million) | 2021/22 (£, million) | 2022/23 (£, million) | 2023/24 (£, million) |
Childhood immunisations | 125.4 | 94.4 | 62.9 | 84.2 | 95.6 |
School age immunisations | 41.1 | 41.1 | 36.5 | 42.6 | 55.4 |
Flu vaccination | 260.2 | 345.8 | 388.6 | 448.1 | 403.9 |
Other immunisations | 32.2 | 22.1 | 8.0 | 25.1 | 29.2 |
COVID-19 immunisation | 0.0 | 554.6 | 1,080.2 | 386.2 | 268.4 |
National immunisation programmes total | 458.9 | 1,058.0 | 1,576.2 | 986.2 | 852.5 |
National population screening programmes total | 644.6 | 668.5 | 675.8 | 647.4 | 701.2 |
Child health information services total | 46.5 | 31.4 | 25.2 | 52.2 | 53.4 |
Public health services in secure and detained settings total | 95.5 | 84.5 | 90.8 | 82.0 | 82.1 |
Sexual assault referral centres (SARCs) total | 33.2 | 39.0 | 42.3 | 48.1 | 52.8 |
Grand total | 1,278.7 | 1,881.4 | 2,410.3 | 1,815.8 | 1,742.0 |
Source: NHS England.
Notes:
- the above section 7A expenditure is as reported by NHS England regions from 2019/20 to 2023/24. These figures relate to deployment costs for commissioning individual services to patients;
- in 2020/21 and 2021/22, some capacity normally dedicated to public health programmes was redeployed to support the response to the pandemic. As a result, funding for section 7A services was not ring-fenced, and has not since been ring-fenced, and the costs of delivering section 7A services could not be quantified accurately;
- from 2020/21, COVID-19 immunisation expenditure represents a material amount of the immunisations total and the section 7A expenditure total. Section 7A expenditure on vaccinations increased in 2022/23, driven by post-pandemic catch up activity;
- flu vaccination expenditure figures include drugs and activity reimbursement;
- all figures for public health in secure and detained settings and sexual assault referral centres are based on data collection done in arrears;
- 2019/20 expenditure for public health in secure and detained settings are an estimate. The first data collection was in 2020/21; and
- the costs listed for sexual assault referral centres includes minor costs from the wider sexual assault and abuse services pathway, for instance services related to supporting victims of sexual assault and abuse that sit outside of a SARC.
Expenditure for 2024/25 and 2025/26 is not yet published.