Expanded immunisation team working to ensure young people do not fall through gaps

The service, run by Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, has also demonstrated successes in administering the HPV vaccine to young people, which is timely given the recent national pledge to eliminate cervical cancer.

Earlier this year, the trust’s school-age immunisation service (SAIS) was commissioned to provide vaccinations to children and young people across an expanded area – covering Northumberland, North Tyneside, Newcastle and Gateshead.

That includes around 500 schools, but the team is clear that they provide a ‘school-age’ service, not just in schools. They have listened to feedback from families and now provide evening and weekend sessions.

This includes partnering with Active Northumberland to use leisure centres in the county and a vaccine hub at the Metrocentre.

All the different work has added up to 74,000 flu vaccinations for schoolchildren. This was delivered by a team of 40 nurses, but just 18 whole-time equivalents.

The new contract did lead to an expansion of the team, with seven new posts, and that has included newly qualified nurses as clinical leads Stephanie Gibbs and Caroline Smith are passionate about promoting nursing careers beyond the most well-known roles in hospitals.

Stephanie said: “In recent years, we have worked to create a team of public health nurses, rather than simply immunisation nurses.

“Each nurse is designated to a cohort of schools and they effectively take on three roles in their day-to-day work – as a bridge between education and health, a point of contact and to develop an insight into the challenges faced in each community.

“This could be deprivation, low educational attainment, high ethnic minority populations or digital poverty to name but a few barriers to vaccination uptake.”

The SAIS is also responsible for the HPV vaccine, which is given to children aged 12 and 13 to protect against cervical and other types of cancer.

A recent event highlighted how one area covered by the team, Northumberland, bucked national trends in 2021/22 to achieve 91.5 per cent coverage for HPV vaccination in Year 9 girls.

NHS England has committed to pursue the elimination of cervical cancer by 2040.