Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether parents of babies in neonatal units will be given priority access to a covid-19 vaccination.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) consists of independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccine/s the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level. They advised that phase one of the vaccination programme should have the prevention of mortality at the forefront of its objectives, as well as supporting the National Health Service and social care system.

Parents of babies in neonatal units who are aged over 50 years old or who have underlying health conditions which make them clinically vulnerable or clinically extremely vulnerable to COVID-19 are being given priority access to a COVID-19 vaccination in the first phase, which we are aiming to complete by the middle of April. All other parents of babies in neonatal units will be offered the vaccine in priority order, with a target date of the end of July, in line with advice from the JCVI.

The JCVI has recommended that access to the COVID-19 vaccines should continue to be prioritised by age as this is the biggest determining factor to increased mortality from the disease.