Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to ask the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to update the baseline modelling and assumptions it uses to make decisions on the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating specific age cohorts against seasonal influenza.

For the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation to formally revisit the cost-effectiveness of vaccinating specific age cohorts against seasonal influenza, an up-to-date impact and cost effectiveness analysis would be required, and the UK Health Security Agency is in the process of updating the influenza model using more recent data, including accounting for changes due to the pandemic.

There is currently uncertainty on any longer-term changes because of the pandemic to social contact patterns and the activity of flu in the population for a fully robust update to cost effectiveness analysis in the short term.