Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what amount of flu vaccine his Department (a) ordered in 2020 and (b) purchased in each of the last five years.

Public Health England (PHE) secures sufficient volume of flu vaccines used in the children’s flu programme to ensure that eligible children aged less than 18 years who present for vaccination can be offered an appropriate vaccine. Information on the number of doses procured by PHE is commercially sensitive.

General practitioners and community pharmacists are directly responsible for ordering flu vaccine from suppliers which are used to deliver the national flu programme to all other eligible groups.

In 2015/16 and 2019/20, around 400,000 doses of adult flu vaccine were procured as a contingency stock. We are currently considering stock levels for the 2020/21 season.