Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 9
Tenth Report - Prevention in health and social care: vaccination
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 34
Addressed to Department of Health and Social Care
Health and Social Care Committee Prevention in health and social care All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Recommendation (the committee's words)
We welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review of commercial clinical trials, which chimed with a lot of the evidence that we heard in this part of our inquiry. The Government’s positive response to the recommendations is encouraging. We especially endorse the following recommendations and will be keeping a watching brief on the Government’s progress in implementing them, which we expect to be swift: a) Recommendations 2, 3 and 4 to address overly slow and bureaucratic clinical trial set-up and approval processes, in particular the goal for a 60-day turnaround for approvals b) Recommendations 14 - 17 to address the absence of conversation about research from interactions between clinicians and patients and increase the profile and awareness of research among disadvantaged or marginalised groups c) Recommendation 27 to develop an action plan outlining how the Government and delivery partners will implement the recommendations of the review.
From: Health and Social Care Committee, Tenth Report - Prevention in health and social care: vaccination (HC 1764), paragraph 34, 27 July 2023
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 20 October 2023 (deadline 27 September 2023).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The Government responds to each of the Committee's five recommendations, setting out ongoing work and consultations, and states it is committed to improving vaccination uptake and regaining the UK's position as a global leader in clinical trials.
- On widening the vaccination workforce, the Government says it is "reviewing" the use of unregistered professionals, and a consultation launched on 7 August 2023 (closed 18 September 2023) includes an option for a time limited amendment, covering until April 2026, to regulation 247A.
- On NHS England's vaccination and immunisation delivery strategy, it says "latest thinking" focuses on empowering system leaders to plan local services, and that "the strategy will be published later in 2023".
- On the O'Shaughnessy review of commercial clinical trials, it has welcomed all recommendations "in principle" and "will consider" delivery of all of them, with "an implementation update" to be provided "in the autumn".
- On the JCVI and MHRA, it describes the UK system for reviewing new immunisation products as "effective and responsive" and notes £10 million over two years announced for the MHRA at Spring Budget.