Less than half of primary schools employ a nurse

Key medical roles are slashed

- By Lucy Johnston SOCIAL AFFAIRS EDITOR

FEWER than half of the primary schools in England now have a school nurse, rising to just over two-thirds of secondary schools.

A new landmark census will tomorrow reveal the number of schools with nurses has fallen by a third since 2009.

Meanwhile just over one in 10 primaries, and a third of secondary schools, now has an onsite vaccination clinic.

It comes after the UK Health Security Agency last week said a baby had died of whooping cough after her mother was not vaccinated while pregnant.

And in July a child died from measles at the Alder Hey Hospital in Liverpool, which was blamed on the poor uptake for the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine.

None of the main childhood vaccines in England reached the uptake target of 95% last year, official records show.

Just 72.6% of pregnant women were vaccinated against whooping cough, while only 83.7% of five-year-olds received both MMR jabs.

It follows government warnings about low uptake, as well as an increase in vaccine hesitancy.