Asked by: Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Bethell on 19 January (HL11665), what steps they are taking to ensure that the vaccine record card which will be issued to patients by the NHS will be recognised as an International Certificate of Vaccination or Prophylaxis.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The Government will review whether COVID-19 status certification could play a role in reopening the economy, reducing restrictions on social contact and improving safety. This will include assessing to what extent certification would be effective in reducing risk and the potential uses to enable access to settings or a relaxation of COVID-19 secure mitigations. The Government will also consider the ethical, equalities, privacy, legal and operational aspects of this approach and what limits, if any, should be placed on organisations using certification. It will draw on external advice to develop recommendations that take into account any social and economic impacts, and implications for disproportionately impacted groups and individuals’ privacy and security. The review will also include consideration of potential solutions for people to access their COVID-19 vaccination status.
Asked by: Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to provide recipients of COVID-19 vaccinations with a certificate that is recognised both nationally and internationally.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The careful and accurate recording of vaccination status is incredibly important to ensure that priority cohorts are offered both doses of a COVID-19 vaccine, and to ensure robust surveillance systems are in place to support patient safety.
The National Health Service’s National Immunisation Management System (NIMS) is the national register of COVID-19 vaccinations. At the point that someone receives their COVID-19 vaccine, the vaccinating team will record it and this information will go onto the NIMS system and onto a patient’s general practitioner record. As with other vaccination programmes, a vaccine record card will be issued to patients with the relevant details about the vaccine including the date of their vaccination and their vaccine type. This does not constitute an immunity passport and will not be used as a form of identification.
Asked by: Lord Hannay of Chiswick (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what cross-departmental assessment was made following the confirmation by the European Commission on 17 March that the UK was entitled to participate in the EU’s joint procurement arrangements for personal protective equipment and other COVID-19 related supplies; and what decision was reached as a result.
Answered by Lord Bethell
The United Kingdom Government is working round the clock with industry, the National Health Service, social care providers and the army to ensure the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical equipment such as ventilators.
As part of this national effort, we are working with international partners to make sure that we can increase supplies of medical equipment within the NHS and to deliver a strategy that provides the best outcome for the UK.
The UK is eligible to take part in European Union Joint Procurements during the Transition Period and we are participating in the joint EU procurement scheme on therapeutics that is soon to launch. We will consider participating in other future schemes on the basis of public health requirements, including any on PPE.