PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Meningitis: Vaccination (23 October 2017)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, for what reason there has been no public communication on the delay to the cost effectiveness methodology for the immunisation programme and procurement process for the meningitis B vaccine for children who are more than two years old.

Asked by:
Darren Jones (Labour)

The report of the Cost Effectiveness Methodology for Immunisation Programmes and Procurements (CEMIPP) review was submitted to the Department in July 2016. This report is about immunisation methodology in general and not Meningitis B vaccination specifically. It is a technically complex report that could have implications beyond immunisation. The then Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Public Health and Innovation (Nicola Blackwood), therefore referred it to the Appraisal Alignment Working Group (AAWG) for advice and this is due later in the year. There has been no public communication because there has been no delay, the AAWG are still due to give their views to ministers later in the year.

It is important not to pre-empt the AAWG’s considerations but to give them the time they need to consider the CEMIPP report and reflect on subsequent research. The Department will consider the CEMIPP report alongside the AAWG advice and remains committed to publishing the CEMIPP report in due course.

Answered by:
Steve Brine (Conservative)
31 October 2017