Maggie Throup

The Department has no current plans to provide healthcare providers with training in gender-sensitive and culturally competent care for women seeking HIV services. Individual employers providing HIV care are responsible for ensuring their staff are trained and competent to carry out their role.

The standard of training for health care professionals is the responsibility of respective independent statutory regulatory bodies who set the outcome standards expected at undergraduate level and approve courses. It is the responsibility of higher education institutions to write and teach the curricula content that enables their students to meet the regulators’ outcome standards.

Vaccine uptake rates are considered in the planning for future vaccination programmes. However, no assessment has been made of the potential impacts of changes to the eligibility criteria for flu and COVID-19 vaccines on vaccine uptake rates. This is because the primary aim of the COVID-19 and flu vaccination programme continues to be the prevention of severe disease (hospitalisation and mortality) and vaccination is therefore offered to those at greatest risk of serious disease.

Policy options based on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s advice on a potentially expanded vaccination programme for respiratory syncytial virus are currently being developed by the Department, working with the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England. The Government will then announce its plans once complete.

The Department is guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on the approach to the immunisation programmes in England. Details about the flu vaccination programme for 2023/24, including which groups will be eligible for a free vaccine and the vaccines that will be reimbursable to National Health Service providers, were published on 25 May 2023. The groups eligible for a free flu vaccine for the 2023 to 2024 season include those aged 65 years and over and those aged six months to under 65 years in clinical risk groups.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, eligibility for the influenza programme was temporarily extended to include all adults aged between 50 and 64 years of age to protect the population from the potential threat of cocirculation of COVID-19 and influenza and alleviate pressure on the NHS. In the JCVI’s advice for the 2023/24 programme published in November 2022, it stated that whilst there would be a health benefit in vaccinating low risk 50–64-year-olds, it is uncertain whether this would be cost effective and that the overall priority should be to extend the childhood programme in secondary schools as this would be more cost effective and likely to have a greater impact on morbidity and mortality compared with vaccinating 50-64 year olds. An expansion of the flu programme to include secondary school-aged children was announced on 4 July 2023.

Policy options based on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s advice on a potentially expanded vaccination programme for respiratory syncytial virus are currently being developed by the Department, working with the UK Health Security Agency and NHS England.

There is currently an existing, targeted immunisation programme in place to protect infants at high risk of complications if infected by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

To support the effective management of infection levels, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) will monitor weekly levels of RSV and bronchiolitis, a condition associated with RSV in young children. UKHSA also leads public health messaging on social, national, and regional media, highlighting the signs and symptoms of RSV and the steps which can be taken to reduce infections, including reducing risks to babies.

The UK Health Security Agency collects data on shingles vaccine uptake including immunocompromised individuals. This data collection has been in place since the start of the programme in September 2021. Data will be published subject to quality validation processes.

A plan is in place to collect data to monitor the uptake in new cohorts who will be eligible for Shingrix from 1 September 2023, with the intention to publish this data in February 2024.

It is vitally important that everyone takes up the vaccinations to which they are entitled; for themselves, their families and wider society. The Department continues to use the best available evidence to demonstrate the health benefits of vaccinations at both a personal and population level, and highlights these messages through regular media, stakeholder and social media engagement. The Department also works closely with both NHS England and the UK Health Security Agency to develop vaccination guides and patient facing consent resources to demonstrate the benefits of vaccinations for all, as well as ensuring that reputable sources such as NHS.UK or GOV.UK are prominent and readily signposted.

A paid for campaign to promote uptake of seasonal flu and COVID-19 booster vaccinations for this season is in development, due to launch in early November 2023.

The Department is guided by the independent Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on the approach to the immunisation programmes in England. Their decision is informed by the cost effectiveness of different vaccines and different vaccine policies, which evaluate the health impacts of vaccines versus the costs. However, they do not consider the impact on the economy. The Department will continue to be guided by JCVI advice, which is based on a cost-effectiveness approach to appraising vaccines.

The Department’s objective is to improve the health of the population. Influenza has a significant impact in terms of morbidity and mortality. It will also have an economic impact, as do most other health conditions. Vaccines are the best defence we have against respiratory infections such as flu. They provide good protection against hospitalisation and death. They also reduce the risk of long-term symptoms.

We do not have all the information in the format requested.

Please see the attachment for the information provided.

This information is published at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/national-flu-and-covid-19-surveillance-reports-2021-to-2022-season

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/covid-19-vaccinations-archive/

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seasonal-flu-and-covid-19-vaccine-uptake-in-frontline-healthcare-workers-monthly-data-2021-to-2022

We do not have all the information in the format requested.

Please see the attachment for the information provided.

Flu vaccine uptake is published at the following links:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seasonal-flu-vaccine-uptake-in-gp-patients-monthly-data-2021-to-2022

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seasonal-flu-vaccine-uptake-in-children-of-school-age-monthly-data-2021-to-2022

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/seasonal-flu-and-covid-19-vaccine-uptake-in-frontline-healthcare-workers-monthly-data-2021-to-2022

The 2022/23 campaign to promote uptake of seasonal flu and COVID-19 booster vaccinations had a media spend of £3.02 million. This was an integrated winter vaccinations campaign therefore it is not possible to split out the spend by vaccine. The 2021/22 campaign to promote uptake of seasonal flu and COVID-19 booster vaccinations had a media spend of £11.5 million. This was also an integrated winter vaccinations campaign and spend cannot be separated out by vaccine.

The Department together with the National Health Service and UK Health Security Agency are providing advice and information to support those getting the COVID-19 and flu vaccines and to anyone who might have questions about the vaccination process.

Our communications include information and advice shared via television, radio and social media. This has been translated into 28 languages including Albanian, Arabic, Brazilian, Chinese, Hindi, Polish, Tagalog and Urdu. A new country-wide marketing campaign urging millions of eligible people to get their flu and COVID-19 booster vaccines to top up their immunity was launched on 24 October 2022. This includes targeted communications for ethnic minority communities, with a particular focus on those with low vaccine confidence.

Multicultural community activity is seeing teams of campaign ambassadors engage with a range of different ethnic groups who tend to be more vaccine hesitant. This is taking place across the country in high footfall places of worship and nearby community settings.

The information requested is not held centrally. However, the United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) publish seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in general practitioner patients. The following table shows the provisional monthly data for 1 September 2022 to 30 November 2022 for various cohorts and seasonal influenza vaccine uptake provisional data for all school aged primary school children in England given from the 1 September 2022 to the 30 November 2022.

Source: Seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in GP patients: monthly data, 2022 to 2023 and Seasonal influenza vaccine uptake in children of school age: monthly data, 2022 to 2023, UKHSA

Data for December 2022 will be published at the end of January 2023 and data for secondary school aged children will be published on 26 January 2023.

UKHSA has published provisional data for Seasonal influenza uptake amongst frontline healthcare workers (HCWs) in England 2022 to 2023 for the period 1 September 2022 to 30 November 2022, it is 41.8%. The data for December 2022 will be published at the end of January 2023.

As of the week, ending 18 December 2022, the proportions who had received their flu vaccination for the 2022 to 2023 season were, 70.1% of total residents and 13.8% of total staff of older adult care homes:

Vaccine uptake for carers will be published in the 2022 to 2023 annual report

The information requested is not held. However, the following table shows the booster uptake in age group from 50 years old to 90 years old and over by 30 November 2022 and 31 December 2022.

Source: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/vaccinations?areaType=nation&areaName=England

Data on vaccine uptake in pregnant women is published by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in the Vaccine Surveillance Report, data is available up to June 2022. Of women who gave birth in June 2022, 67.3%, 24,933 of 37,037, had received 2 doses of the vaccine before they gave birth.

The National Health Service publishes data on the total number of people who have had an Autumn Booster dose to date, 12 January for Health Care Workers, immunosuppressed and those at risk in the age bracket, of five years old to 49 years old. Individuals identified as carers in their general practitioner record were included in this cohort but from 1 December 2022 carers are no longer included.

UKHSA publish monthly reports on seasonal influenza and COVID-19 vaccine uptake in frontline healthcare workers. Data published to the end of November 2022 showed that in 165 NHS Trusts providing a return, 338,602 frontline healthcare workers had received a COVID vaccine since 1 September 2022, an uptake of 36.3 %.