Select committee: Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 10
Tenth Report - Prevention in health and social care: vaccination
Published 27 Jul 2023
Paragraph 41
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)
Exciting innovations are on the horizon and have the potential to transform preventative healthcare. While the timeframe for such innovations, like a personalised cancer vaccine, is unknown, future planning must be done on the assumption that personalised therapeutics will become available. NHS England, and the MHRA and JCVI, need to be ready to play their part in ensuring these innovations can reach patients as quickly as possible, and the Department itself has a crucial role in ensuring this happens. It would be incredibly disappointing to reach a point where the vaccines themselves were ready but the infrastructure to approve and deliver them was still some time away.
From: Health and Social Care Committee, Tenth Report - Prevention in health and social care: vaccination (HC 1764), paragraph 41, 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.