Childhood Immunisation in the spotlight

London 2010

'The childhood immunisation programme continues to be a cornerstone of public health protection in this country, preventing serious illness and much bigger costs in years to come.'

NHS London and the London Programme for IT are calling on PRIMIS+ facilitators to help to improve childhood immunisation recording, after the Health Protection Agency expressed serious concern over immunisation rates in the capital.

Public Health Performance Lead at NHS London, Julia Murphy, is leading the immunisation project and believes that data quality is vital if immunisation rates are to be improved and childhood diseases avoided.

Julia said: “Despite an upward trend in coverage, London’s immunisation rates have remained 10 percent or lower than the national level. This has resulted in outbreaks of life-threatening infectious diseases that are vaccine preventable, most recently measles and mumps.

'It is evident that there are two issues that reduce immunisation rates in London; the quality of the data and the relationship between the PCT and clinicians. The two are linked, primary care is sceptical of the figures and this masks the number of children who are not immunised.'

As a result the project will attempt to implement a standardised approach to GP recording, reporting and the electronic transfer of this data to Child Health Information Systems.

This includes the development and deployment of an upload tool and the provision of an accurately mapped immunisation data set from general practices.

As well as helping to develop the upload tool, the London Programme for IT are working with child health system managers to improve data flow and quality in community systems.

If successful the SHA estimate that the project will lead to between 2 and 20% improvement in the immunisation status of PCTs depending on their existing rates.

To ensure practice engagement and an improvement in data quality, Julia hopes to involve data quality facilitators in the project. She is keen to get facilitators on board because she believes that they will be invaluable in the rolling out templates and relaying feedback from practices.

Clive Sutherland from Redbridge PCT is one facilitator who has been involved in the project for some time, having tested templates and kept his practices informed about the initiative.

Clive said: “I have tested the templates to ensure that they are simple to install and functional for use in practice. I have also shown the templates to practice staff, who were particularly impressed by the ease in which data can be added to a patient record.

It is important for all practice staff to know how to use the templates, as data should be inputted as soon as possible to ensure records are accurate. In theory, overall data quality should also improve as everybody will be inputting the correct Read codes.'

If you would like more information about the childhood immunisation project taking place across London, please contact your primary care immunisation lead or Public Health Performance Improvement at NHS London.