Home visit vaccines in bid to boost uptake

Health visitors will be sent to the homes of young families in England to deliver vaccines amid alarm that one in five children start school with no protection against deadly diseases, the Guardian can reveal.

- Andrew Gregory Health editor

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends that at least 95% of children should receive vaccine doses for each illness to achieve herd immunity. However, not a single one of the main childhood vaccines in England hit the target in 2024-25. There were also sharp differences in uptake across the country.

In an effort to tackle the crisis, health visitors will begin offering a range of lifesaving jabs to children in their own homes as part of a £2m pilot scheme starting this month.

Health visitors are nurses or midwives who work with families with children under five to identify health needs as early as possible. Under the scheme, they will target families who are not signed up with a GP or who struggle with travel costs, childcare, language barriers or other issues stopping them seeing a doctor.

Children would be identified by the NHS using GP records, health visitor notes and local databases, sources said. Health visitors will be trained to administer vaccines safely and have tricky conversations with parents, including those with doubts about vaccine safety.

Twelve pilot areas will launch across five regions of England - London, the Midlands, the north-east and Yorkshire, the north-west and the south-west-aimed at increasing uptake. If successful, the scheme will roll out everywhere in 2027.