Secondary school pupils will reportedly be offered Covid-19 vaccinations from September under plans being developed by the NHS.

Health service officials are compiling planning documents which include a measure to offer a single dose of the Pfizer jab to children aged 12 and older when the new school year starts, according to The Sunday Times.

Pfizer has said trials of its vaccine in children aged 12 to 15 showed 100 per cent efficacy and a strong immune response.

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The plans, which The Sunday Times said it had confirmed with government and NHS sources, are contingent on advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, due this summer.

Committee member Professor Adam Finn, from the University of Bristol, told The Sunday Times: “We need to be in a position to immunise children, particularly teenagers, promptly and efficiently if we need to.

“It is extremely important that education in the next academic year is not disrupted in any way,” the paediatrician said.

But he added: “We should only be doing vaccine programmes when we need to do them.

While children are unlikely to fall ill with Covid-19, they do play a role in transmitting the virus.”

Professor Finn said on April 24 that children had been frustratingly “left behind” in the Covid-19 vaccine programme, adding he wanted to “get on” and conduct the necessary trials in children.