Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Prior of Brampton on 21 March (HL7044), why the current section 7a public health functions agreement does not include key deliverables for the provision of pneumococcal vaccination to severely immunocompromised children aged at least five years and adults, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation in July 2013.

The 2016-17 Section 7A public health functions agreement specifies key deliverables in relation to new or changed programmes that are being introduced within 2016-17.

The provision of pneumococcal vaccination to severely immunocompromised children aged at least five years and adults, as recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation in July 2013, is reflected in the relevant service specification for the existing pneumococcal immunisation programme and within the document Immunisation against Infectious Diseases (‘the Green Book’). The Green Book is published on the GOV.UK website in an online only format.