Debbie Abrahams
Main Page: Debbie Abrahams (Labour - Oldham East and Saddleworth)Department Debates - View all Debbie Abrahams's debates with the Department for Business and Trade
(11 months ago)
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Maria Caulfield
The Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee is right. That is why we have met with both the west midlands and the London teams to hear from those on the ground what resources they need in order to become more nimble in the vaccine roll-out. The communities that are not coming forward are the ones that are not engaging with the routine MMR vaccine programme, so we need to be more nimble, which is why we are hearing from those vaccinating on the ground about vaccine buses going into communities, pop-up clinics in schools, and GPs putting on extra vaccine clinics. From our data, we have a list of the children who are unvaccinated, and more than a million letters have gone out to their parents to urge them to come forward.
My hon. Friend is right about using pharmacy, with Pharmacy First as a model, to make it even easier for people to come forward, but the real barrier is people’s reluctance to get vaccinated for a variety of reasons, whether it is vaccine fatigue through covid or because they missed their routine appointments and find it difficult to come forward at an extra clinic. We are engaging with local authorities and the Department for Education to try to make it as easy as possible for children and adults to get vaccinated.
Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)
There are clear inequalities in vaccination uptake, including MMR, which reflect various socioeconomic inequalities. What extra support is being given to those areas, and to places such as mine, and why, as the Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee suggests, was the risk assessment of the UK Health Security Agency seemingly ignored by the Government?
Maria Caulfield
I can assure the hon. Lady that it was not ignored by the Government. Over the past 12 months, we have been pushing vaccinations to those who have not come forward, and to communities that struggle with vaccination uptake, which is why in the past 12 months there has been a 10% increase. As I say, that is not enough. There are still people who need to come forward for vaccination who have not done so. I emphasise to the House that this is an acute outbreak of measles. If someone has their first dose of the measles vaccine today, within two weeks they will have roughly 92% immunity. If they go on to have the second vaccine, they will have roughly 98% immunity, which will be lifelong.