Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the answer by Baroness Merron on 16 December (HL Deb Col 661), what research has been carried out by, or on behalf of, the NHS to identify the reasons for vaccine hesitancy among NHS staff.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The Department invests over £1.6 billion each year on research through its research delivery arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). It is funding research into the causes of vaccine hesitancy and ways to improve vaccine uptake in all adults and children, and to reduce inequalities in coverage.

The NIHR has funded a specific study aimed at improving the uptake rate of vaccination in the National Health Service for seasonal influenza. The results are published in Improving uptake of seasonal influenza vaccination by healthcare workers: Implementation differences between higher and lower uptake NHS trusts in England, from Infection, Disease and Health, volume 24, issue 1, published February 2019.

The NIHR has also funded research addressing factors associated with vaccine intention during COVID-19, which included health and social care workers. These results are published in Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, in volume 17 in 2021, and volume 18 in 2022.

Other ongoing research to address the decline in immunisation rates is carried out by the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit in Vaccines and Immunisation and the NIHR Health Protection Research Unit on Evaluation and Behavioural Science. Both have received funding of £5.5 million over five years.

The NIHR continues to welcome funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including vaccine hesitancy among National Health Service staff.