Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, whether he has received requests to expedite the timetable of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation for a decision on HPV vaccination for boys; and whether he plans to review that timetable.

The Department and Public Health England (PHE) have received correspondence from hon. members, organisations and members of the public asking for the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation’s (JCVI’s) advice to be expedited.

The JCVI has requested modelling work to help inform whether a human papillomavirus vaccination programme for boys would be cost-effective. It is anticipated that PHE will submit this to JCVI by early 2017. This is not an issue of resources, as the process of model development and checking the validity of the results is complex and requires close working between the modelling team and the scientific and clinical experts. We need to follow due process and ensure that decisions are based upon robust and rigorous cost-effectiveness analysis.