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Shingles, a painful skin rash, develops from the chickenpox virus, which almost all adults have dormant in their bodies after contracting the virus at a young age.

Because of this, the vaccination will not actually reduce circulation of the virus as other vaccines, such as polio, do.

The rash usually heals within four weeks, although a quarter of sufferers develop pain along the affected nerve.

More than 30,000 people in their seventies develop shingles every year in England and Wales, only 0.9 per cent of that age group, according to a report by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation. Public Health England found that the programme would cut shingles by more than a third, but this would effectively benefiting just 0.4 per cent of 70 to 79-year-olds.

The programme will be rolled out to those aged 70 and 79 this autumn at a cost of £50 million, and the rest of the age group in coming years at a similar cost.

Once the 70-79 age group has been vaccinated, the programme will cost an estimated £30 million a year.

Dr Bill Beeby, a GP and chairman of the British Medical Association's prescribing committee, said: "If you are one of the ones in the 0.4 per cent not going to get shingles because of the vaccine, you will be prevented from a very painful and debilitating illness. But you'll never know if you were one of the 99 per cent who would never get it anyway. When the NHS is being asked to find £20 billion savings, the question is particularly relevant."

Klaus Green, a Surrey GP, said: "Medical colleagues and I were astonished to find that this decision had not been arrived at by directly comparing the cost of the vaccination programme with the savings to be made on referrals, admissions and drugs used to treat shingles."

A health department spokesman said: "This programme is preventive; it hopes to reduce the pressure on GPs, hospitals and drug use, as well as pain suffered by patients by circumventing the disease."