COVID 19 Autumn Booster Programme 2023
This follows the latest advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI).
Professor Wei Shen Lim, Chair of COVID-19 vaccination on the JCVI, said:
"The COVID-19 vaccination programme continues to reduce severe disease across the population, while helping to protect the NHS.
That is why we have advised planning for further booster vaccines for persons at higher risk of serious illness through an autumn booster programme later this year."
"It is important that everyone who is eligible takes up a booster this autumn – helping to prevent them from hospitalisations and deaths arising from the virus over the winter months."
Eligible people include:
- residents and staff in older adult care homes
- everyone aged 65 and over
- those aged 6 months to 64 years in a clinical risk group
- frontline health and social care workers
- household contacts of immunosuppressed people aged 12 to 64
- unpaid carers aged 16 to 64
Last year’s autumn booster programme ended on the 20 February 2023. Data up to 12 March showed that 73.2% of people aged 65 to 70 years in England had been vaccinated and this increased in older cohorts rising to 83.7% (just under 2.5 million) in those aged over 80 years.
Data from last autumn’s programme showed that those who received a booster were around 53% less likely to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19 in the 2 to 4 weeks following vaccination, compared to those who did not receive a booster.
NHS England will confirm details on how and when eligible people can access the autumn booster vaccine in due course.
Read the government press release on COVID 19 Autunm Booster Programme.
