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 extending eligibility for the Spring 2023 covid-19 booster programme to people living with immunocompromised people.

The primary aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is to reduce the risk of severe disease across the population. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advice has prioritised the most vulnerable of the clinical risk groups for vaccination in this precautionary Spring 2023 COVID-19 booster programme.

The programme targets those over the age of 75 years and those who are immunosuppressed.

Household contacts of immunosuppressed individuals were eligible in the autumn/winter 2022-2023 booster programme and are likely to benefit as protection against severe COVID-19 disease does persist for a number of months, as shown in analyses of real-world data, previously considered by the JCVI. This data is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccine-weekly-surveillance-reports