Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to help tackle MMR vaccine disinformation; and what estimate she has made of the number of measles cases by (a) region, (b) local authority, (c) socioeconomic group and (d) ethnic background in the last five years.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) ensures all relevant healthcare professionals have access to resources to maintain confidence in the national vaccination programmes including measles, mumps and rubella (MMR).

NHS England is actively working with regional and local systems in low uptake communities, to enhance outreach activities and improve access to vaccination. UKHSA has developed an evaluation framework and resources to facilitate sharing of effective approaches. To assess the level of public confidence in the vaccination programmes, UKHSA undertakes annual surveys, to understand how knowledge, beliefs and attitudes towards vaccine safety, and disease severity influence uptake. This information is used to inform programme planning and implementation and the development of effective communication strategies.

UKHSA publishes routine data on laboratory confirmed measles cases by age and region monthly, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/measles-guidance-data-and-analysis#epidemiology

This routine report does not include a breakdown of cases by local authority due to the risk of deductive disclosure. UKHSA does not routinely capture robust data on ethnicity or socioeconomic status of cases. However, data can be enhanced retrospectively and analysed over longer periods to describe inequalities in burden of disease. Most recently this has been published in 2019, and is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/measles-and-rubella-elimination-uk-strategy