Health and Sport Committee

Meeting date: Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Official Report 469KB pdf

Petition

Gender-neutral Human Papillomavirus Vaccination (PE1477)

Item 2 is consideration of petition PE1477, by Jamie Rae, on behalf of the Throat Cancer Foundation, on the human papillomavirus immunisation programme in Scotland.

Members are aware of the work that the Public Petitions Committee has carried out on the petition. The Scottish Government has agreed to implement a targeted extension of the HPV vaccine to include men who have sex with men, up to the age of 45, who attend a genito-urinary medicine or HIV clinic. The Scottish Government has also advised that it does not propose to extend the HPV immunisation programme to adolescent boys ahead of any recommendation that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation may make. A recommendation from the JCVI is expected in 2017.

The committee is going to look at the way in which we handle petitions, given the number of new members. More experienced members may like to be involved in that discussion. With the committee’s agreement, we will leave the petition sitting with the committee until we have that discussion. Can we get agreement on that?

Members indicated agreement.

Thank you. We now move into private session.