Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase rates of vaccination of young people against the human papillomavirus.

Coverage of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in teenage girls is high with nearly 84% receiving the full course of vaccine. HPV vaccination uptake data can be viewed at the following link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/760902/HPV_2017_2018_annual_report.pdf

From September 2019, the HPV vaccination programme will be expanded to boys in school year eight. To help teenagers and their parents make an informed choice about the HPV vaccination programme Public Health England (PHE) developed a range of targeted materials to provide information. Local immunisation providers should share this information and signpost teenagers and their parents to these materials when the offer of HPV vaccination is underway in schools. These materials can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immunisation#human-papillomavirus-(hpv)-for-girls

In addition, PHE has also worked closely with several charities such as Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and the Teenage Cancer Trust to develop lesson plans for schools to use to teach young people about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine. These can be seen at the following link:

https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information-healthcare-professionals/information-teachers; and https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/about-us/what-we-do/cancer-awareness/resources#cervicalcancer