Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of prioritising staff of (a) homelessness, (b) domestic abuse and (c) social care for the severely disabled services for covid-19 vaccination.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) are the independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccines the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level.  For the first phase, the JCVI has advised that the vaccine be given to care home residents and staff, as well as frontline health and social care workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors.

If staff working with the homeless or victims of domestic abuse are captured in phase one due to their age or clinical risk factors they will be prioritised. However the Government, as advised by the JCVI, are not considering vaccinating such workers as a phase one priority at this stage.   Care workers providing care for those who are severely disabled and clinically vulnerable to COVID-19  will be prioritised in phase one.

Prioritisation decisions for next phase delivery are subject to surveillance and monitoring data and information from phase one, as well as further input from independent scientific experts such as the JCVI. Phase two may include further reduction in hospitalisation and targeted vaccination of those at high risk of exposure and/or those delivering key public services.