Shingles: Vaccination

(asked on 20th December 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether it is Government policy to introduce a call and re-call system for shingles vaccinations to increase consistency with the approach to vaccinations for flu and pneumococcal disease.


Answered by
Jo Churchill Portrait
Jo Churchill
Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 13th January 2020

Immunisations play a critical role in preventative healthcare and in promoting health and well-being across the life course, particularly for older adults where protection against flu, pneumococcal disease and shingles is so important. The Department is working closely with NHS England, NHS Improvement and Public Health England to develop a 10 year vaccine strategy to be published early in 2020. This will include a focus on improving immunisation uptake rates across the life course including through better use of call/recall.

The NHS Long Term Plan published in January 2019 committed to a review of general practitioner (GP) vaccination and immunisation standards which commenced in April 2019. One of the purposes of the review is to clarify what is expected of call/recall for all the National Health Service immunisation programmes. Recommendations from the review will be implemented through the GP contract where appropriate, following the current negotiating period.

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