National Immunisation Programme

Lord Kamall Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I will pass on that message from the noble Lord, who has consistently asked excellent questions about the modernisation behind the scenes of the NHS and of business practices, and on moving from paper to digitising. He is absolutely right and I will take his question back to the department. Moving forward, it is very important that we, and our children and our children’s children, can pick up the app and see what vaccinations we have had. It is very simple and straightforward. I have to say that, in recent years, the Government have made very significant progress on the NHS app, but there is more to do.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend will know from previous vaccination programmes that there have been vaccine-hesitant individuals but also communities that have not always been reached. I know that there has been some learning from those previous immunisation programmes. Can my noble friend update the House on what progress has been made and what learning there has been from previous vaccination or immunisation programmes to make sure that we reach those hard-to-reach individuals and communities?

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend, who raises an important point. As I said, the UK has the most extensive immunisation programme in the world, with our vaccine confidence and uptake rates among the highest globally. However, we still have a lot of work to do on the communication of these outstanding products. NHS England’s Vaccination Strategy was published in December 2023; it sets out how the NHS and its partners will reduce morbidity and mortality from vaccine-preventable diseases by increasing vaccination uptake and coverage. The strategy outlines plans to maximise convenience for local communities, improve confidence and tackle complacency, by making every contact with local NHS services count. We all experienced the vaccination programme during Covid-19, and the NHS has learned from that by providing services locally so that people who find it difficult to travel around London or big cities have a convenient, familiar civic centre in which to get vaccinated. We have learned from Covid, but clearly we have a lot more to do.