Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of including covid-19 mass testing centre staff to the priority list for receiving the covid-19 vaccine alongside frontline NHS staff.

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) consists of independent experts who advise the Government on which vaccines the United Kingdom should use and provide advice on prioritisation at a population level.  For the first phase, the JCVI has advised that the vaccine be given to care home residents and staff, people aged over 80 years old and frontline health and social care workers, then to the rest of the population in order of age and clinical risk factors.

If testing centre staff are captured in phase one due to their age or clinical risk factors, then they will be prioritised accordingly. Prioritisation decisions for the next phase of delivery are subject to the surveillance and monitoring of data and information from phase one, as well as further input from independent scientific experts, such as the JCVI. Phase two may include targeted vaccination of those at high risk of exposure and/or those delivering key public services.