Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to protect blood cancer patients and other immunocompromised groups who may still not be fully protected after a third covid-19 vaccine dose given that the shielding programme has ended.

Immunocompromised individuals are a priority cohort for research into therapeutic and prophylaxis treatments, such as monoclonal antibody therapies and repurposed compounds. The Antivirals Taskforce is also identifying potential effective treatments for patients who have been exposed to the virus to stop the infection spreading and speed up recovery time. The National Health Service is also developing plans to deploy monoclonal antibody therapies if these become available in coming months.

As of 17 September, Ronapreve was made available to treat the most vulnerable hospital patients through an interim clinical policy. We anticipate that further monoclonal antibodies will be submitted for evaluation for a marketing authorisation by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the next few months. If approved, these could become available for community treatment or prevention use. On 20 October the Department announced the procurement of two promising new antivirals, with the intention to make these available to patients as part of a national study.