MMR Vaccine

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

Thursday 20th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Markham (Con)]

The noble Lord is correct about trying to make sure that we learn the lessons from all these areas. The approach that they have been responding to so far is very much “horses for courses”. In the last six months alone, they have had four different types of campaign. We do not have the results from those campaigns yet, but the point is a very good one and I will make sure that we get those results from the research and share them.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, as my noble friend has referred to, it is very important that young people, children, get vaccinations when they are due, but the current government campaign to encourage adults to have a shingles jab, and indeed other areas, seems to point out—I have heard this from GPs—that the fact that adults are not now taking boosters for things such as tetanus, and other areas where vaccination is so important, means that there is a gap. Does my noble friend not think that we ought to do more to encourage adults to take up vaccinations, renewals and boosters where appropriate to safeguard their health?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

Yes. That is where we really see UKHSA coming into its own in terms of taking an intelligence-led approach. The concern came from its modelling: its epidemiologists brought this up as a concern, which led to the alert going out on 14 July. Likewise, it is looking into other categories and, where there are those concerns, it will come out and suggest such outreach programmes.