Speeches by Coleman.

“It is not based on evidence for MMR? Why are you not—”

“I get that you are looking at other things. May I have a commitment from you that you will look at MMR, because that is a very serious issue and I do not think it is—”

“But you do not have a target. I am sorry to pick up on that but I want to press on this because it came up earlier as well. You do not have a target for the percentage of schools in which this should be effective by this time next year.”

“GPs might be annoyed if pharmacies can do it?”

“I can see there are lots of problems. My question is: are you gripping this and trying to enable pharmacies to offer MMR vaccines? We have really bad rates on MMR vaccines.”

“When I raised it with the North West London integrated care board two years ago, I was told that it could not. We offered to do a pilot. It came back but was blocked higher up in the NHS.”

“Everyone goes to a pharmacy. If you have a family, you are constantly going with your kid to a pharmacy.”

“Will you look at it?”

“Will you come back to the Committee and say why you will or will not do a study? Whatever you say, and you are not saying anything particularly reassuring, vaccination is failing in this country and it seems to me that you are not doing two things that matter. First, making the economic argument effectively, and second…”

“I am of a certain age, so I go into my pharmacy for stuff, and no one ever says to me, “Have you had your flu jab?” I went and asked for a flu and covid jab, and I paid for them, but no one actually asked me. Your system, while admirable, does not flow right through yet. Can I ask about one particular aspect of jabs? W…”

“Where are you piloting them?”

“Then why do you not do one? You know there is a problem. We all know there is a problem. I am sounding quite irascible because I have been dealing, as so many of my colleagues have, with ICBs and others on vaccination for years. The first time I raised it in an ICB, a doctor said to me, “Well, some people do not like t…”

“You are not piloting MMR?”

“You have enough money to deliver what you need to deliver, yet we are failing on vaccines. That is not very reassuring. When you ask for money, you ask for it on the basis of arguments that you make. Has there been a cost-benefit analysis undertaken of the cost to the NHS of people not being vaccinated? Is there a cost…”

“Not overall?”

“Why has one not been done overall? You are arguing for money for three years for vaccination, and we have a failure in vaccination rates. They are poor and are going down. In my part of London, they fall every year. London is failing on vaccination generally—flu vaccination and others. We know that. Why have you not us…”

“The health system what?”

“Are you saying that, in having a vaccine programme which hits 65% against its 95% target, you analyse what that 65% means, or do you look and say, “If we got vaccination rates up, it would save the NHS this much money?” Could I just have a yes or no? Have you actually done a study? Is there a study?”

“I asked you about MMR.”

“If the evaluation shows that the pilot was effective and the pilot has stopped, might you then still roll it out?”