Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure a high level of up-take of the HPV vaccine throughout the country.

Coverage of the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in teenage girls is high with nearly 84% receiving the full course of vaccine. Public Health England (PHE) developed a range of materials targeted at teenagers and their parents to provide information about the HPV vaccination programme to help them make an informed choice. Local immunisation providers should share this information and signpost teenagers and their parents to these materials when the offer of HPV vaccination is underway in schools. These materials can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immunisation#human-papillomavirus-(hpv)-for-girls

PHE also provides information and training materials for health professionals to ensure they can adequately respond to queries or concerns. These training materials can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/human-papillomavirus-hpv-the-green-book-chapter-18a

In addition, PHE has also worked closely with several charities such as Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust and the Teenage Cancer Trust to develop lesson plans for schools to use to teach young people about cervical cancer and the HPV vaccine. These can be seen at the following links:

https://www.jostrust.org.uk/information-healthcare-professionals/information-teachers

https://www.teenagecancertrust.org/about-us/what-we-do/cancer-awareness/resources#cervicalcancer