Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government why there is an upper age limit of 79 years for the respiratory syncytial virus vaccination.

The policy for the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) programme is based on the advice of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which is an independent expert advisory committee on vaccination and immunisation. This advice is provided to the Government to inform, develop, and make policy.

In the JCVI’s statement summarising the advice for the RSV programme, the committee stated that an extension to the initial programme would be considered when there is more certainty about the protection provided by the vaccination in the very elderly and evidence of the real-world impact of the programme in the 75 to 80-year-old cohort.

Following an assessment of specific individual clinical situations, a doctor such as a general practitioner or hospital consultant may choose to prescribe vaccines outside of the national programme, under clinical discretion.