Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 16 February (HL14349), on what evidence they base the conclusion that including wider societal benefits in vaccination appraisals would disadvantage programmes unable to evidence such benefits; and whether they have carried out a recent assessment of those benefits.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

Our approach to decisions about vaccination programmes is informed by expert recommendations and advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). Working closely with the UK Health Security Agency‑based JCVI secretariat, the Department ensures that the cost-effectiveness methodology for assessing vaccination programmes enables the committee to advise on programmes that deliver the greatest health benefit to the greatest number of people.

Understanding the wider impacts of vaccination beyond health benefits is important in making the broader case for investment in vaccines and in encouraging uptake of vaccines amongst those who are offered them, and can be considered in exceptional cases in addition to the cost effectiveness assessment. In recognition of this, the Department strives to remain abreast of work demonstrating the benefits of vaccination to the wider economy.

However, changing the cost-effectiveness methodology itself to consider a broader range of costed benefits runs the risk of unintended consequences for vaccination programmes which cannot robustly demonstrate these benefits.

That is because decisions are required on how best to spend public funds. If wider socio-economic benefits can be robustly demonstrated for some vaccination programmes but not others due to data availability, there is a risk that changing the cost-effectiveness methodology to include wider benefits could result in programmes with high-quality data being considered more valuable. These programmes could therefore be prioritised for funding over other vaccination programmes, not because they deliver greater overall benefit, but because the data on their wider economic impact is more complete.

The potential impact of this, and potential consequences for the vaccine supply market, including vaccine price, would need to be carefully considered and risks properly evaluated, before any systematic change to methodology.