AQW 35301/22-27

Mr Danny Donnelly
Alliance Party
East Antrim

Tabled Date: 12/11/2025
Answered On Date: 11/12/2025
Priority Written: No

Question:
To ask the Minister of Health to detail any plans in place to increase vaccination uptake rates across the population.

Answer:

The Public Health Agency (PHA) is responsible for the operational delivery of all national vaccination programmes in Northern Ireland, and it employs a range of activities to support and promote vaccination uptake.

The PHA has established an Improving Childhood Vaccine Uptake Working Group to identify barriers to uptake and implement actions to improve uptake in childhood vaccination programmes to prevent vaccine-preventable diseases and potential outbreaks in Northern Ireland. Actions taken include:

Additional training for vaccinators in the use of the Child Health System to call eligible children appropriately;

Implementation of core immunisation training for vaccinators through the Clinical Education Centre (including training on communication and motivational interviewing);

The creation of additional public resources for cohorts where uptake is known to be low, including the provision of materials in different languages and for populations where literacy may be lower;

Liaison with the Education Authority to promote awareness of the importance vaccination within educational settings;

Providing training and resources for Sure Start leads to promote vaccinations in pre-school settings;

Providing GPs with advisory letters highlighting their practice uptake and comparisons to other GPs in their area; and

Collaborating with charities such as Cancer Focus and Meningitis Research Foundation to promote associated vaccination programmes.

In addition, the PHA conducts school visits, promotes immunisation programmes in undergraduate and postgraduate medical and nursing settings, and hosts webinars for professional groups including GPs, community pharmacies, teachers and the NI Childminder’s association.

With regard to seasonal vaccination programmes, the PHA has deployed the following:

A review of vaccine uptake by school and Super Output Level to facilitate targeted action to low uptake areas to address convenience and confidence in vaccination programmes;

Provision of professional training slides to support vaccinating staff and of hard copy and online patient information material as part of informed consent;

Provision of social media resources (including infographics, “flu virus watch” statistics and school’s information);

Liaison with the Education Authority to promote flu vaccination through schools; and

The publication of vaccination uptake rates on the PHA website to share performance.

In addition, and because of indications of an earlier than usual influenza season, the PHA will shortly be rolling out a paid-for communications campaign to promote the flu vaccination programme and encourage uptake by all eligible groups.

The ‘Stay Well This Winter’’ campaign supported by social media and printed materials, is also currently running in over 500 Living Well community pharmacies and promotes uptake of the flu, COVID-19, RSV and pneumococcal vaccines, for those who are eligible. The Living Well campaign has previously focused on childhood immunisations in 2023 and 2024.

The PHA also oversees a range of activities in relation to adult and ‘at risk’ programmes including:

The promotion of vaccines for older adults via PHA social media and at community events such as Positive Ageing Month.

The provision of professional training slides to support vaccinating staff, and of print and online patient information material as part of informed consent; and

The roll out of pertussis vaccine to HSC Trusts (based within maternity services) to improve access to vaccination for pregnant women. The RSV vaccination programme is also administered to pregnant women via HSC Trust maternity services.

A programme of work to promote pregnancy vaccines through the midwifery workforce is also underway, and a survey is currently live which aims to help the PHA understand current knowledge and beliefs around vaccination. In addition, the PHA continues to promote vaccinations for the Gay, bisexual, men who have sex with men (GBMSM) community (these include the HPV, Mpox and Gonorrhoea 4CMenB vaccinations), including the promotion and administration of vaccines at Pride events across Northern Ireland.

The PHA is a member of the “UK forum to facilitate discussion on declining coverage and inequalities”, which is chaired by the UK Health Security Agency. This groups brings together relevant stakeholders from across the UK nations to explore the likely contributing factors to declining coverage across the routine immunisation programmes, to identify common issues, discuss potential actions to address the issues, and facilitate the sharing of experience and learning across the UK nations.