Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans her Department has to make this winter's Covid-19 vaccine available for purchase.

There are no plans to make the COVID-19 vaccines the Government holds for National Health Service use available for purchase. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), a body of independent experts, advises the Government on who should be offered vaccination through the national programme for COVID-19. Vaccination for COVID-19 through the NHS is free for those eligible and there are no plans to introduce charges.

Current COVID-19 vaccines offer good protection against serious outcomes but only short-lived protection from mild symptomatic disease. The aim therefore is to offer vaccination to those the JCVI advises are at higher risk of hospitalisation and death. This risk is strongly linked to older age and some specified clinical conditions.

All vaccines that have been licensed by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency for use in the UK may be prescribed by physicians privately as well as through the NHS. Currently COVID-19 vaccines are not available privately but as is the case for many other vaccines, manufacturers and providers are able to set up a private market alongside the NHS offer when they consider this viable and appropriate. The Government is supportive of the emergence of a private market for COVID-19 vaccines. Supply of vaccines for such a market would be, as with all other vaccines, a matter for the private providers working with manufacturers to obtain through the open market.