Coronavirus Vaccine

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 3rd December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, difficult decisions have to be made by everyone in this. The JCVI has looked very carefully indeed at the challenge of how to prioritise this vaccine, taking representations from a large number of groups. Ultimately, its priority is to protect life and the NHS, and its clear decision has been to have a prioritisation based on age because this is the greatest driver of mortality.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend, the MHRA and everyone associated with producing this vaccine in such record time; it is a great tribute to our health service. I will focus on the fact that the flu jabs for the over-50s are still being distributed, and there is a reluctance among some—perhaps as many as two-thirds of the over-50s—to take up the flu vaccine, as they would like to wait for the Covid vaccine, which, of course, defeats the purpose of offering them the flu vaccine. Is this something that my noble friend is aware of, and is it something that he could address? I echo the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Clark, and ask that specific regard be had to the challenges of administering the vaccine in rural areas. Will my noble friend use, as far as possible, the dispensing doctors in this regard? I pay tribute to them and the work I do with them.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, as few will be surprised to know, the rollout of the flu vaccine has been hugely successful this year; the take-up has been massive. I am not aware, from the stats that I have seen, of any slowdown in the take-up of the flu vaccine, but the point my noble friend Lady McIntosh makes is understandable—I am happy to check it out. I also encourage anyone who is thinking about deferring the flu vaccine until they get the Covid vaccine to think again because it is a massive priority to get vaccinated for both.

The noble Baroness and I have talked before about dispensing doctors, whose role is very important. There is a challenge with the distribution of the Pfizer vaccine because of cold storage and the large number of shots in each vial. I am not sure whether that means that rural dispensing doctors can play the important role that they might do at this stage of the distribution, but I reassure the noble Baroness that they will play a role in the national distribution as it pans out over the next few months.