Coronavirus: Vaccination

(asked on 9th February 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with (a) Cabinet colleagues and (b) NHS England on prioritisation of workers at managed quarantine facilities for the covid-19 vaccine.


Answered by
Nadhim Zahawi Portrait
Nadhim Zahawi
This question was answered on 19th April 2021

To date, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has not held discussions with Cabinet colleagues or NHS England and NHS Improvement about prioritising workers at managed quarantine facilities for 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.  The JCVI identified that the vaccination of frontline healthcare workers should be a priority for the COVID-19 vaccination programme during phase one because these staff are at high risk of acquiring COVID-19 infection and also of transmitting that infection to multiple persons who are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19, as well as to other staff in a healthcare environment.

For phase two of the vaccination programme, the JCVI published its final advice on 13 April, setting out that the most effective way to minimise hospitalisations and deaths is to continue to prioritise people by age, rather than by occupation. This is because age is assessed to be the strongest factor linked to mortality, morbidity and hospitalisations, and because the speed of delivery is crucial as we provide more people with protection from COVID-19. The Government is on track to offer all adults eligible in phase one and phase two their first dose of authorised vaccines by the end of July. Therefore, workers at managed quarantine facilities who are eligible for a vaccine, because of their age or other clinical factors, such as underlying health conditions, will have access to a vaccine by the end of July.

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