Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department plans to take to ensure that the NHS has an adequate supply of flu vaccines in autumn 2018.

Public Health England (PHE) provides flu vaccines centrally for the children’s flu programme so that eligible children are offered either the nasal spray Fluenz Tetra or an inactivated flu vaccine for those children for whom Fluenz Tetra is unsuitable. Centrally purchased flu vaccines are carefully monitored by PHE to ensure there is equitable distribution across England and sufficient in-date vaccine for patients who present throughout the season.

General practitioners and other providers are directly responsible for the flu vaccine supplies used to deliver the national flu programme to the other eligible groups.

Information on who is eligible is available at the following link:

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/vaccinations/Pages/who-should-have-flu-vaccine.aspx

PHE maintains some oversight to help facilitate a constant supply of vaccine, liaising with vaccine manufacturers to ascertain whether there are any manufacturing problems which could impact the running of the programme at a national level.