Changes to vaccination and immunisation from 1st April 2021

The provision of vaccination and immunisation services will become an essential service for all routine NHS-funded vaccinations with two exceptions:

• Childhood and adult seasonal influenza, which will continue as enhanced services.
• COVID-19 vaccination.

Five core contractual standards will be introduced to underpin the delivery of immunisation services. These include:

• a named lead for vaccination service
• provision of sufficient convenient appointments
• standards for call/recall programmes and opportunistic vaccination offers
• participation in national agreed catch-up campaigns
• standards for record keeping and reporting.

Further information can be found in Annexe A here

Routine Immunisation Schedules

Routine childhood immunisation schedules can be found here

Complete routine immunisation schedule can be found here

The Green Book & Vaccine updates

The Green Book has the latest information on vaccines and vaccination procedures, for vaccine preventable infectious diseases in the UK. https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/immunisation-against-infectious-disease-the-green-book

Vaccine update is a regular newsletter describing the latest developments in vaccines, and vaccination policies and procedures. You can subscribe to vaccine updates here

Uncertain or incomplete immunisation

Here you can find a one-page summary for health professionals and immunisation practitioners giving vaccinations. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vaccination-of-individuals-with-uncertain-or-incomplete-immunisation-status

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control has a useful website which lets you compare vaccination schedules from all the countries in Europe. https://vaccine-schedule.ecdc.europa.eu/

The World Health Organization has a webpage which allows you to view all the vaccines routinely offered in any country in the world. Click on the country name and then click on ‘Select all vaccines’ before clicking on ‘OK’ to view a list for that country. https://apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/globalsummary/schedules

Useful contacts

Contact the regional Screening and Immunisations Team with any queries relating to NHS immunisation and vaccination: england.swscreeningandimms@nhs.net

If you have a query regarding the content of authorised PGDs, please contact Public Health England on Immunisation@phe.gov.uk

Child Health Information Service BNSSG: Email: hil.bnsssg.swchis@nhs.net. Telephone: 01278 589225. Fax: 01278 589226

Office Hours: Monday to Friday 9:00am to 5:00pm; Saturday 8.30am to 12 noon

Immunisation resources

There are many immunisation patient information leaflets available for download here

Hard copies can be ordered from www.healthpublications.gov.uk

Children’s immunisation stickers can be obtained via https://gskpro.com/en-gb/resources/ click on patient resources and click ‘show more’ until you see bravery stickers. You will need to register for an account to order.

Helpful websites

The Vaccine Knowledge Project: They aim to be a source of independent information about vaccines and infectious diseases. They provide clear information on complex topics and back it up with references to high-quality, reliable research.

All of the content is aimed at the general public and designed to help people make informed decisions about vaccine issues. The content is also suitable for healthcare professionals such as health visitors, school nurses, GPs and paediatricians. https://vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/vk/

NHS Vaccination page: provides a guide that can help you to understand the vaccines offered in the UK and when to have them. It also explains how they work and why they’re safe and important. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/

Who can administer immunisations following relevant training and competency assessment?

	Health Care Support Workers*	Nursing Associate*	Registered Health Care Professional
Childhood Immunisations
Flu
Pneumococcal
Shingles

*Unregistered Health Care Workers and Nursing associates cannot operate under a PGD as they are not currently included within the legislation therefore to administer immunisations there will need to be a patient specific direction in place.

What training is required to administer vaccinations?

The following training is required:

• Core immunisation training – 2-day programme provided by the Avon LMC
• BLS & Anaphylaxis training
• Competency assessment
• Annual updates – 1 day programme provided by the Avon LMC

Immunisation training for registered Health Care professionals

The National Minimum Standards and Core Curriculum for Immunisation Training for Registered Healthcare Practitioners can be accessed here

Immunisation training for unregistered Health Care Support Workers

The National Minimum Standards and Core Curriculum for Immunisation Training of Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs) recommend that only HCSWs who have achieved education and training to Level Three of the Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF) or equivalent in England and Wales with at least 2 years’ experience as a HCSW should be considered for training in vaccine administration.

HCSWs working at this level are likely to be at level three or above of the NHS Career Framework.

These Standards are intended to support and facilitate high quality, safe delivery of the influenza, shingles and/or pneumococcal vaccination programmes rather than be a barrier to HCSWs.

The publication of Minimum Training Standards (2015) does not mean that HCSWs currently involved in immunisation should be prevented from practising, but it is strongly recommended that they are given the opportunity to receive comprehensive immunisation training as soon as is practically possible.

What if the HCSW doesn’t meet the critea?

The National Minimum Standards and Core Curriculum for Immunisation Training of Healthcare Support Workers (HCSWs) provides national guidance and recommendations; however the responsibility lies ultimately with the employing practice to ensure that you maintain patients and staff safety.

It is imperative to understand that should anything untoward happen in your practice, the employing practice and partners could stand in front of a coroner or judge and justify that the training and clinical supervision provided for their staff was sufficient to ensure they were competent, and confident to undertake the task given to them.

The full guidance can be found here

During the COVID 19 pandemic some of the standards were amended in response to the national emergency, further guidance on immunisation training during the COVID-19 pandemic can be found here.

Health Care Support Workers Administering Inactivated Influenza, Shingles and Pneumococcal Vaccines for Adults and Live Attenuated Influenza Vaccine (LAIV) for Children RCN guidance can be found here.

Competency assessments

The RCN Immunisation Knowledge and Skills Competence Assessment Tool for registered and unregistered staff can be found via the link below.

https://www.rcn.org.uk/-/media/royal-college-of-nursing/documents/publications/2018/april/pdf-006943.pdf?la=en

Managing immunisation clinics

The RCN has published best practice recommendations for managing childhood immunisation clinics, this can be found here.

Legal Framework for administering immunisations.

South West PGDs are available here

PSD template can be downloaded below

The use of human and animal products in vaccines – patient information leaflets

Guide to the use of human and animal products in vaccines can be found here

Vaccines & porcine Gelatine can be found here

Vaccine incidents including cold chain breach.

Vaccine incident guidance: responding to vaccine errors can be found here

Cold Chain flowchart can be found on page 43, appendix A.