Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the level of take-up of the flu nasal spray among (a) pre-school children and (b) school-aged children.

Flu vaccine uptake is closely monitored with weekly publication of data on two and three year olds who are offered vaccine in general practice. Vaccination of these children started later this year because of a delay in availability of the nasal spray vaccine.

As a consequence of this delay, the latest provisional data indicates that just under 1% of all eligible pre-school children have received the nasal spray vaccine. We anticipate that the uptake will increase in line with previous years as vaccine becomes available.

Data on flu vaccine uptake in school-aged children is collected monthly. The first set of data will be published on 21 November 2019, showing uptake up until 31 October 2019.