Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will include people with spinal injuries affecting their ability to breathe within the priority group of people eligible to receive an anti-covid-19 vaccine.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) consists of independent experts who provide advice to the Government on which vaccine(s) the United Kingdom should use and which groups within the population to prioritise.

The JCVI in their advice has stated that Phase 1 roll out of a vaccine will have the prevention of mortality at the forefront of its objectives, as well as to support the National Health Service and social care system. For the first phase, the JVCI have advised that the vaccine be given to care home residents and staff, followed by frontline health and social care workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors. Included are those with underlying health conditions, which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality.