Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to undertake an (a) equality impact assessment and (b) health inequalities assessment of access to meningococcal group B vaccination.

In developing vaccination policy, the Department has due regard to its duties under the Public Sector Equality Duty. Consideration of equality and health inequalities impacts are undertaken as part of the development, implementation, and review of vaccination programmes, including meningococcal B (MenB) vaccination programmes.

The United Kingdom has a national immunisation programme against MenB diseases where infants are offered the MenB vaccine at eight weeks, 12 weeks, and one year of age. This vaccine is offered to all UK born infants alongside routine immunisations and therefore is equitable for all infants. This vaccine is also offered to a small group of individuals at increased risk of meningococcal disease such as people without a spleen or complement deficiency.

The UK does not currently offer the vaccine to any other cohorts, but they may still be able to acquire the vaccine privately. However, this is not within the remit of NHS England or the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). Should an expansion of the national programme be recommended at any point the UKHSA would, as part of the planning for implementation, undertake an assessment to ensure that the approach recommended acted to mitigate inequity in line with the principles outlined in the Immunisation Equity Strategy for any additional cohorts.

My Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has asked the Joint Committee on Vaccinations and Immunisation (JCVI) to re-examine eligibility for meningitis vaccines to assess, for example, an expanded offer to older children and/or young adults.

The JCVI will provide updated advice to the Department this summer around whether, and to what extent, a vaccine programme for older children and/or young adults would be clinically effective as well as an assessment of the cost effectiveness of such a vaccination programme.