UK trails other countries in prison Covid jabs

The UK is lagging behind other countries in vaccinating its prisoners against Covid-19, according to figures from the World Health Organisation (WHO).

International data collected by the global body shows that some European countries have been much more successful in delivering jabs in jails.

By the beginning of July, 56 per cent of prisoners in England and Wales had received a first dose of vaccine, according to Public Health England. By contrast, according to the WHO, Sweden had vaccinated 59 per cent of prisoners by July, Poland 74 per cent and Spain 97 per cent.

Even one developing country – Cambodia, in south east Asia – claims to have vaccinated 73 per cent of its prisoners against Covid.

All UK prisoners, along with the rest of the adult population, were offered a first dose of the vaccine by July. The main factor which is thought to be preventing higher take-up is vaccine scepticism, with many prisoners turning down the offer of a jab due to health fears or conspiracy theories. The Inside Time website reported in July that 51 per cent of prisoners at HMP Birmingham, 60 per cent at Thameside and 66 per cent at Berwyn had declined a jab, according to figures released by individual prison healthcare providers under the Freedom of Information Act.

The WHO figures are drawn from the organisation’s Health in Prisons European Database, which collects a variety of information about prison healthcare from across the continent. It also shows that some countries have had less success than the UK in vaccinating prisoners, including Finland where the rate was 34 per cent and Ireland where it was 44 per cent.

Dr Carina Ferreira-Borges, Acting Head of the WHO European Office for the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases, praised countries such as Spain and Poland for their high rates of vaccination, adding: “This shows that the ministries responsible for health in prisons, in collaboration with prison administrations, are conscious of the higher vulnerability of people in prisons and were able to quickly react to translate theory into practice, deploying the necessary resources to ensure access to important public health interventions, like vaccination.”

Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, WHO Regional Director for Europe, added: “Detention facilities have always been vulnerable in the face of epidemics and infections. So, when protecting people living and working in prisons, Member States are wisely ensuring that health protection leaves no one behind.”

In the UK, prisoners have been offered the vaccine in priority groups based on age or clinical vulnerability, at the same time as people in the same groups living in the community. Public health experts and charities had called for prisoners to be given higher priority via a ‘whole prison’ approach to vaccinating, claiming it would have been easier to organise and increased the take-up rate, but the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immigration (JCVI), which advises the Government, rejected the approach.

Commenting on the UK figures in a blog, Frances Crook, chief executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform, said: “With such low take-up of the vaccination, many more people inside prisons and their families and contacts are going to be susceptible to Covid spilling out into the community.

“So why was this allowed to happen? The NHS is saying it wanted to vaccinate whole prisons and is blaming HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) for the debacle. HMPPS is blaming the JCVI. I suspect it may have been ministers who took the decision for political reasons, as they did not want to look like they were prioritising prisoners at a time when care homes and other vulnerable people were being failed.”