Preschool immunisation rates in London, especially against measles, mumps and rubella, are among the worst in England and at a ten-year low. Too many of London’s children are not fully protected, and this is worse in deprived areas and among certain ethnic groups. We are leading a programme to help primary care teams turn this around.

The programme launched in North East London in February 2022 and was selected as a 'pathfinder' for the London Health Data Strategy.

See an overview of our progress: Childhood Immunisations Plan Do Study Act poster [PDF 383KB]

Using data within the GP practice

Our quality improvement programme centres on a “call and recall” software tool, APL-Imms, which CEG has developed for use by GP practice teams.

The tool displays all relevant information from the practice’s patient records in one place. It allows practice staff to navigate the complex immunisation programme easily and work smarter when prioritising patients for appointments and reviewing immunisation records. Using this tool practice staff can quickly draw up a filtered list of children who are due or overdue for immunisations, see more detail on an individual with one click, and access direct links to vaccine information to inform their conversations with families. The tool supports a patient-centred and systematic approach that makes it easier for practice teams to ensure no child misses out.

APL-Imms is available to practices in the NHS North East London region, an area covering a population of 2.2 million people. In addition to step-by-step guidance and demo videos, CEG’s team of facilitators provide 1:1 training and support, and data entry templates to ensure the tool has high-quality coded data to draw from. 

Near-real time intelligence

As the programme develops, we will be introducing dashboards and maps that use aggregated near-real time data to highlight areas where timely immunisation is particularly low. These resources will be available to local authorities and NHS commissioners to inform public health campaigns and local initiatives to prevent disease outbreaks.

Working with practices, parents and the public

Our project team are working closely with parents, primary care staff and local organisations to understand the barriers and concerns that prevent immunisation in young children. From these conversations, we will gain insights on how to improve access to services and better communications with parents to support timely and equitable childhood vaccinations.

As a Pathfinder project for the London Health Data Strategy, the learning from our approach to health improvement using data will be shared as an exemplar for assuring data quality and responsible curation at source.

 

Our collaborators

CEG team: Ana Gutierrez, Anna Billington, Carol Dezateux, Gill Harper, Isabel Dostal, Kate Homer, Milena Marszalek, Nicola Firman, Zaheer Ahmed

In collaboration with:
Sian Howell, Clinical Effectiveness South East London (CESEL)
Kavitha Saravanakumar, North West London CCG/ICS
Ngawai Moss, Parent and founding member of Katie’s Team

Funding and support

This programme is jointly funded by the London Health Data Strategy partners, which include NHS England (London region), the five London ICSs and a number of London’s NHS organisations and universities, and further supported through Health Data Research UK. The programme builds on CEG’s previous work to improve childhood immunisation rates which was funded by NHS North East London Clinical Commissioning Group’s Digital First programme and Barts Charity REAL Health programme.