Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason teachers and students in SEN schools are excluded from receiving covid-19 booster vaccinations.

The Government is guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on who should be offered COVID-19 vaccinations. The primary aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is the prevention of severe disease, hospitalisation and mortality arising from COVID-19. Boosters are offered to those considered at risk of serious outcomes.

On 7 March 2023, the Government accepted JCVI advice that as a precautionary measure, an extra COVID-19 vaccine booster dose should be offered in spring 2023 to adults aged 75 years old and over, residents in a care home for older adults and individuals aged five years old and over who are immunosuppressed.

Older persons, residents in care homes for older adults and those who are immunosuppressed continue to be at highest risk of severe COVID-19. Special Educational Needs teachers and students are not as a group excluded from receiving these or any other COVID-19 booster vaccinations. If they meet the criteria for eligibility set out above, they will be able to receive a COVID-19 spring booster vaccination.

The JCVI regularly reviews its advice in relation to the COVID-19 vaccination programme, considering new data, evidence on the effectiveness of the programme and the epidemiological situation.