Asked by: Andrew Cooper (Labour - Mid Cheshire)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending eligibility for covid-19 vaccinations to groups not included in the vaccination programme.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
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 primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness (hospitalisations and deaths) arising from COVID-19. Population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity. COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since COVID-19 first emerged.
The focus of the JCVI advised programme has therefore moved towards targeted vaccination of the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease, including mortality. These are the oldest adults and individuals who are immunosuppressed.
On 13 November 2024, JCVI published advice on who should be offered vaccination in autumn 2025. On 26 June 2025, the Government accepted the JCVI’s advice that in autumn 2025, a COVID-19 vaccination should be offered to the following groups:
The Government has no plans to change eligibility for autumn 2025. It has accepted the JCVI advice for this campaign in full. As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the level of uptake of (a) flu, (b) RSV and (c) whooping cough vaccinations among pregnant women in Fylde constituency in the last 12 months.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) routinely monitors and reviews vaccination coverage of all routine immunisation programmes in England. UKHSA does not collect or publish data at constituency level and is therefore unable to provide these data. UKHSA publishes data for uptake of influenza, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and pertussis vaccinations for England at national and NHS commissioning region level. For pertussis and influenza, data are published by integrated care board level for Lancashire and South Cumbria.
Flu vaccine uptake for pregnant women in Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated care board was 31.4% during the 2024 to 2025 flu season.
RSV vaccine uptake for pregnant women is published for England at a national and NHS commissioning region level only. Uptake for women in the North-West region was 53.2%. The latest assessment for women delivering in May 2025 is available at the following link:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/rsv-maternal-vaccination-coverage-in-england
Pertussis vaccine uptake for pregnant women is published for England at a national and NHS commissioning region level only. Uptake for women in the North-West region was 66.2% and in Lancashire and South Cumbria integrated care board was 62.1%.
The latest assessment for women delivering in June 2025 is available at the following link:
Asked by: Juliet Campbell (Labour - Broxtowe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, for what reason the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation limited eligibility for covid-19 booster vaccinations; and whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of including unpaid carers under 75 within the eligibility for those vaccinations.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
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 primary aim of the national COVID-19 vaccination programme remains the prevention of serious illness (hospitalisations and deaths) arising from COVID-19. Population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity. COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant, with rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since COVID-19 first emerged.
The focus of the JCVI advised programme has therefore moved towards targeted vaccination of the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease, including mortality. These are the oldest adults and individuals who are immunosuppressed.
On 13 November 2024, JCVI published advice on who should be offered vaccination in autumn 2025. On 26 June 2025, the Government accepted the JCVI’s advice that in autumn 2025, a COVID-19 vaccination should be offered to the following groups:
The Government has no plans to change eligibility for autumn 2025. It has accepted the JCVI advice for this campaign in full. As for all vaccines, the JCVI keeps the evidence under regular review.
Asked by: Andrew Snowden (Conservative - Fylde)
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 help ensure that all pregnant women are routinely offered the whooping cough vaccine between 20 and 32 weeks of pregnancy.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department is working with NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency to encourage high uptake of all immunisations, including in underserved communities and in groups with historically lower vaccination rates.
Significant efforts have been made to raise awareness of the importance of vaccination to protect babies against whooping cough, also known as pertussis. These include targeted campaigns using social media, digital screen graphics, and community outreach. The National Health Service actively promotes vaccination for pregnant women to protect their newborns, and efforts are underway to enhance the recording and monitoring of vaccinations, ensuring accurate data collection to assess the programme’s effectiveness.
Recent data shows maternal pertussis vaccination coverage from April 2025 to June 2025 was 71.2%, which was 11.6 percentage points higher than the period from April 2024 to June 2024.
However, there is more to do to stabilise and improve uptake, and that is why we have set out actions to improve uptake in our 10-Year Health Plan for England. Putting our plans into action, we have recently launched a campaign to promote awareness and confidence in vaccination, including for pregnant women, which will run throughout the year. To improve accessibility, community pharmacies in areas of high deprivation and low uptake are now also commissioned to offer some vaccinations, making it more convenient for individuals to get vaccinated.
Asked by: James Naish (Labour - Rushcliffe)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has contingency plans in place to extend eligibility for coronavirus vaccinations if infection rates rise in winter 2025-26.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The aim of the COVID-19 vaccination programme is to prevent serious disease, hospitalisation and/or mortality arising from COVID-19. Population immunity to COVID-19 has been increasing due to a combination of naturally acquired immunity following recovery from infection and vaccine-derived immunity.
COVID-19 is now a relatively mild disease for most people, though it can still be unpleasant. With rates of hospitalisation and death from COVID-19 having reduced significantly since COVID-19 first emerged, the focus of the independent expert Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advice programme has moved towards targeted vaccination of the oldest adults and individuals who are immunosuppressed. These are the two groups who continue to be at higher risk of serious disease, including mortality.
On 13 November 2024, the JCVI published advice on who should be offered vaccination in autumn 2025. On 26 June 2025, the Government decided, in line with this advice, that a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered in autumn 2025 to the following groups:
While the JCVI keeps the available data under regular review, there are no plans to offer vaccination through the national programme outside these JCVI-advised groups for autumn 2025. All those individuals who are eligible are encouraged to take up the offer of vaccination.
The JCVI has advised that the emergence of a new COVID-19 variant of concern which escaped from current widespread immunity, and therefore results in serious disease, in a wider range of individuals, is unlikely. However, if this scenario did emerge, the JCVI does not consider it likely that current vaccines would be effective. This means that expanding groups eligible for vaccination is unlikely to be clinically useful when compared with developing a new variant vaccine matched to the variant of concern. In this scenario, which the JCVI believes to be unlikely, new advice would be required on which groups were at risk of serious disease and should therefore be eligible for vaccination.
Asked by: Alex Mayer (Labour - Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to improve childhood vaccination coverage rates in (a) Bedfordshire, (b) the East of England and (c) the UK.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Together with the National Health Service and UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), we are taking action to improve uptake of childhood immunisation rates in Bedfordshire, the East of England and across England.
We have set out actions to improve uptake across England in our 10-Year Health Plan as well as our strategy for Giving Every Child the Best Start in Life. Putting these plans into action, we have recently launched a campaign to promote awareness and confidence in vaccination. This will run throughout the year. We are also exploring new ways of delivering vaccinations including health visits and community pharmacy, with pilots for administering vaccinations as part of health visits starting from January 2026. We are also working with families and schools to improve the consent process to help children get vaccines at school and, during 2026-27, we will give parents access to their child’s vaccination health record via the My Vaccines hub on the NHS App.
Regions and local areas are taking tailored and targeted action to improve immunisation rates and ensure that vaccination services best meet the diverse needs of their local populations.
In the East of England, further measures include a trailblazing community and school age immunisation service in which the school vaccination provider also delivers catch-up in community clinics for all childhood vaccines; a dedicated call / recall telephone call centre focussed on measles, mumps and rubella vaccines; and regular training sessions for primary care nurses as well as a local enquiries inbox.
In Bedford and Central Bedfordshire, more local activity includes a new community vaccinations hub at Bury Park, Luton; a new initiative at Bedfordshire Hospitals Foundation Trusts to invite children attending hospital appointments for vaccination if needed; work with specialist health inclusion health visitor teams to improve uptake in the Gypsy Roma Traveller community; home visits for some families who require vaccines delivered at home; work with SEND schools where pupils may have missed childhood vaccinations; and monthly monitoring of individual GP practice uptake rate with targeted support to practices with lower uptake.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the focus on care in the community in the NHS 10 Year Health Plan for England, what steps they are considering to enable pharmacies to administer all adult NHS vaccinations, including for shingles and pneumococcal, to support equitable uptake from all communities.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not currently have plans to enable community pharmacies to administer all National Health Service adult vaccinations. To take forward our commitment to give community pharmacy a bigger role in prevention by expanding their role in vaccine delivery, as set out in the 10-Year Health Plan, we are piloting the use of community pharmacy across several routine vaccination programmes, including respiratory syncytial virus for older adults.
In addition, the national booking service opened on 1 September 2025, allowing all eligible adults the opportunity to book their seasonal flu and/or COVID-19 vaccination appointments from 1 October 2025.
We will continue to work with NHS England to explore and evaluate opportunities to expand the role of community pharmacy in vaccination delivery where this may support our efforts to improve uptake.
Asked by: Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government, with regard to the focus in the NHS 10 Year Health Plan for England on care in the community, what steps they are taking to enable pharmacies to administer all adult NHS vaccinations, including for shingles and pneumococcal disease, to support equitable uptake in all communities.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Department does not currently have plans to enable community pharmacies to administer all adult National Health Service vaccinations. To take forward our commitment in the 10-Year Health Plan to give community pharmacy a bigger role in prevention by expanding their role in vaccine delivery, we are piloting the use of community pharmacy across several routine vaccination programmes including respiratory syncytial virus for older adults.
In addition, the national booking service opened on 1 September 2025, allowing all eligible adults the opportunity to book their seasonal flu and/or COVID-19 vaccination appointments from 1 October 2025.
We will continue to work with NHS England to explore and evaluate opportunities to expand the role of community pharmacy in vaccination delivery where this may support our efforts to improve uptake.
Asked by: Shivani Raja (Conservative - Leicester East)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps (a) his Department and (b) the NHS are taking to counter (i) misinformation and (ii) disinformation about vaccines.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to tackling vaccine misinformation, and we have highlighted our focus on this within the 10-Year Health Plan where we have committed to working with local government, civil society, voluntary organisations and community groups to support public trust in vaccines, particularly in terms of what is needed to restore childhood immunisations rates.
Inaccurate information can spread easily, particularly on online platforms, and it is important that we continue to robustly counteract mis and dis information and point to science. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) closely monitors online activity, including social media and search data, to gather insights about the conversations people are having about vaccinations online, to help inform the information we provide and communications campaigns.
The Department and its partners, take a broad multi-pronged approach to provide authoritative, accurate and transparent information on the benefits and risks of vaccination. For example, UKHSA and NHS England are working to ensure that health care professionals are adequately briefed and trained, with UKHSA recently updating its National Minimum Standards and core curriculum for vaccine training, published in June 2025, which set out expectations for training and competency requirements for all those delivering immunisation services.
Additionally, the Department is working with UKHSA and the National Health Service to ensure that parents and patients have access to up to date and accurate information on all vaccines delivered by the NHS, and to identify and rebut false information. This includes information leaflets and promotional materials available online about different vaccination programmes, covered in a range of translations and accessible formats. Vaccination is also included in the latest Relationships, Sex and Health Education curriculum guidance from July 2025 to ensure that young people learn the facts and scientific evidence relating to vaccination and immunisation.
Furthermore, the Department, UKHSA and NHS England are also delivering national communication campaigns which proactively highlight the value of vaccines and the risks associated with vaccine preventable diseases, and build confidence in vaccine efficacy and safety. Campaign activity includes paid advertising, media, stakeholder engagement and partnerships with a wide range of organisations.
Whilst there is no room for complacency, UKHSA’s latest parental attitudes survey 2025, data shows that vaccine confidence remains high, with 84% of parents saying they trusted vaccines.
We encourage people to speak to a trusted health professional about any vaccine concerns.
Asked by: Caroline Johnson (Conservative - Sleaford and North Hykeham)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the number and proportion of children who are not up-to-date with their vaccinations by the demographic characteristics of those children.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors trends in the level of childhood vaccination rates by upper tier local authority, region and country level. Data on coverage of all routine childhood immunisations are published quarterly and annually by UKHSA. Quarterly data are available at the following link:
Annual data are available at the following link:
Data by demographic characteristics is not collected.
In England, the UK Health Security Agency is working closely with NHS England, the Department and wider health system partners at the national regional and local levels to improve uptake of the routine childhood immunisations and catch-up children who missed out.
To raise awareness of potential vaccination benefits and increase awareness of the programmes amongst health professionals, parents, carers and the wider public, UKHSA provides a comprehensive suite of public facing resources and assets, including information leaflets in multiple languages and accessible formats, including easy read, British Sign Language and braille. UKHSA also provides comprehensive clinical guidance including e-learning programmes and training for healthcare professionals. These are available at the following link:
https://find-public-health-resources.service.gov.uk/