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 impact of the use of covid vaccines on levels of (a) hospitalisations and (b) disability caused by long covid.

The Government is committed to protecting those most vulnerable to COVID-19 through vaccination as guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). The JCVI assessment indicates that the oldest age cohorts and individuals who are immunosuppressed are the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease.

To inform JCVI considerations, the last assessment of the impact of COVID-19 vaccines on hospitalisations was conducted by the UK Health Security Agency using data from the 2023 spring and autumn COVID-19 vaccination programmes. The next evaluation is planned to occur in the next few months.

Long term health consequences following COVID-19, including post-COVID syndromes such as long COVID, have been discussed at meetings of the JCVI. It remains uncertain whether getting extra COVID-19 vaccine doses has any effect on the chances of developing long COVID, how it progresses, or how it affects people.