Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the proportion of people over 65 years of age who have received the free flu vaccination for winter 2018 in (a) England and (b) Merseyside; and when the majority of those eligible will have received it.

In 2018/19, deliveries of the adjuvanted vaccine to providers will be staggered during September to November.

The first provisional weekly flu vaccine uptake data in 2018/19 for those aged 65 and over was published on 11 October 2018. It shows that 21.8% had received flu vaccine by 7 October 2018 – data is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-national-flu-reports-2018-to-2019-season

Figures for Merseyside are not available in the format requested.

By December, uptake is expected to have reached similar levels to previous seasons.