Questions and discussion about the costs involved in rolling out the Meningitis B vaccine

[Myredcardigan]

Partly a TAAT but obviously it's all over the news and Sugar has specifically asked me to start this thread to begin constructive debate.

So, from my pov, I totally get the massive cost implications of vaccinating all those under 11. However, id like to hear from anyone who is in the know and can tell me if link to data showing what the actual cost would be. I'd also like to see what the cost implications of treating children with the disease are. Both the acute care, which will cover all infected children, but also the long term costs both medically and educationally of treating those children lucky enough to survive but sadly left with life long disabilities. I know from an educational POV that a non mainstream state school place can cost 40% more. Sometimes much more. But I have no idea on the medical side. Questions such as,

-How much does it cost the NHS in acute care costs to treat a child with Men B for 1wk

-What about non acute NHS recovery support inc OT

-If you are the parent of a deaf child or are deaf yourself, can you comment on the cost implications of supporting your child (rightfully) both medically and educationally?

-Can anyone comment on the NHS and educational costs involved in supporting a child who is an amputee?

Any other relevant stats and info please add to the thread. Please remember that Sugar has asked for this thread to be put out there. Of course, from a personal perspective I don't think any of this should matter but should the petition get its debate then this is what they'll be looking at.

ReallyTired, I agree. I was wondering if not doing so was a false economy though due to the long term costs of meeting the needs of those children left disabled.

And the bit you quoted from me was me asking how that loss is quantified financially rather than a more emotive, 'how can they do that?'

www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/chickenpox-varicella

20 people die a year from chicken pox. It's really common and a finanical headache for parents who have to take time off work to look after a poorly child. It might make more sense to vacinnate against chicken pox instead of meningitis B.

I work in Finance at a large acute provider. Costing is no way near that simple and there are too many variables. You would need to submit a request (Freedom of Information Request) to acutes who have had children with Men B to supply their cost info and even then there will be massive variation depending on age of child and such like.

From my POV, any costing done is going to be very highly summarised and therefore unlikely to be very reflective of what the actual costs would be. There will be information for it somewhere, but in terms of accuracy and the like..?

It would likely be easier to find out what a CCG fund an acute for the treatment, but that won't necessarily cover everything incurred by the acute in treating said child. Some trusts use Patient Level Information Costing Systems and if you can find one with that in place you'll get a lot more accurate an answer than one who doesn't use PLICS. Reference Costing is an exercise done each year to reflect the average cost to an acute for providing certain procedures and usually the results are a complete mess. Just trying to emphasise that I don't think an accurate costing is likely to exist any time soon, eg. Take it with a pinch of salt.

Sorry for the massive waffle but wanted to explain the issues. It's not just how much it costs, it's cost benefit analysis when there are other preventable diseases and how easy/effective it is to administer those. You need info from the likes of Public Health England and NHS England if you want to know what really goes into the decision of what to do with Men B and vaccinations, they will have access to much better info than an acute provider can supply.

Thank you, Jevoudrais, your post is really helpful.

I had a good look at the for/against evidence for the chickenpox vaccine. It seems there's evidence that keeping CP active in the community helps to prevent more cases of shingles in the elderly. Regular exposure throughout life to the virus keeps your immune reaction to it strong apparently.

"evidence that keeping CP active in the community helps to prevent more cases of shingles in the elderly. Regular exposure throughout life to the virus keeps your immune reaction to it strong apparently."

We have a shingles vaccination so that argument holds less weight.

Would the meningitis b vacinne be a better use of funds than vaccinating all under 6s against flu? Maybe once polio has been eradicated from the earth we can give our children different vaccines.

I hate the fact that my dd is patronisingly referred to by the media drs as an only 30 cases.
That is offensive in the extreme to me.
Can these people walk a mile in my shoes, live my life for a day
Take pills and get counseling and find tears to cry when their are no tears left.

Never mind my daughter is 1 of 30 so doesn't matter.
I am costing the NHS a great deal of money, my toddlers death has ripped me apart.
Never mind she was just 1 of 30
Her funeral was a terrible experience, exdh carried her into church in her little pink casket and I collapsed

What cost a life?
In fact 3 lives, my marriage broke up I, am broken up
My dd is just a statistic

Just 1 of 30

sugar can't imagine how you feel.

My ds was in special care when he was 4 years old with sepsis and I can still vividly remember the trauma.

Look after yourself.

reallytired when we were in Australia the children were routinely vaccinated against chicken pox. Except that while we were there it zoomed through the primary school like a dose of salts.

Sugar, your daughter isn't a statistic to any other mother

In the JCVI statements they mention removing the MenC vaccine from the schedule.

It might be because the ACWY jab has come in and they are giving that instead in certain areas.

Some mixed messages about Men B so it is all very confusing. My doctor recommended giving my older dc the Men B jab (I would have to pay). They have already had the ACWY one.

Sugar my heart goes out to you and your family [flower]

My Ds was diagnosed at 4 days old with meningitis, he then went on to develop sepsis which led to bleeds on the brain and 5 weeks in NICU.

I have no idea if he is one of the statistics for children who are registered as disabled due to meningitis. He has mild cerebral palsy, Global development delay and a whole host of other issues that have involved lots of input from Physio, OT, SaLT, Paeds, optometrists, orthotics, the LEA inclusion services, cerebra and on and on and on...

His hospital file is so thick they had to start a new one, he's only 7 years old. If anyone added up the cost of our son to the NHS, i dread to think how much. He's just one little boy who is at the mild end of disabilities.

Everything and everyone can be listed as a statistic right up until you are that one, then statistics mean nothing, neither do costs.

This vaccine should be offered to every child and every parent should make the decision to accept or decline the invitation.

I should add the Tax payer foots the bill for our DLA, a bit of housing benefit, and additional tax credits because i gave up my very well paid job to look after him and no employer will put up with me trotting off to the hospital and clinics for all of Ds's appointments. He needs his own PA some months.

Ds will continue to cost the NHS a small fortune, his meningitis couldnt be prevented, i caused it by having GBS but hopefully that vaccine will be available very soon aswell and when it does, i will be shouting from the roof tops about it.

Apologies for a Fail link, but some figures in here:

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3016859/All-British-babies-new-meningitis-B-vaccine-landmark-deal-months-negotiation-price-finally-resolved.html

sugar!

Daisy is not a statistic. Not to any of the mothers here. Would you like to like to talk more about her life? Post some pictures of her? Use this thread (or the other) however you would like.

I just think if I was PM and I had the opportunity to commit to a one off sum of money that I knew would save the lives of roughly 100 young children and thus save 100 other families from the devastation that sugar's family suffers daily then I wouldn't hesitate.

The Meningitis Research Foundation seem fairly clear that all children and teenagers should be vaccinated for Men B.

www.meningitis.org/menb

This is what they say.... The vaccination programme is only for babies and we remain concerned that toddlers and teenagers the next highest risk groups remain unprotected. Vaccinating teenagers in particular has the potential to protect the wider population because they are key to transmission and spread of this disease.

Surely the loss of even one child is too many when it is avoidable, eg through vaccination?

Petition now over 578,000. Worth signing & sharing if you agree.

petition.parliament.uk/petitions/108072

It's very hard to have an informed, objective discussion about vaccination when it's such an emotive subject and one of our number has lost a child to Men B. Of course any child's death is terrible and it makes me cry just thinking of this. I'm so sorry Sugar and as a mother I too can identify with your despair at cold, hard statistics in the face of your child's life. I find it very hard to contradict your feelings regarding the matter.

However I have also read (not contributed to) the CP thread. I was always brought up believing that CP is almost a childhood rite of passage. My ds and all the other children I know haven't suffered greatly with CP and i actually had no idea children had died of it. Unlike meningitis which we have it drilled into us from early on is deadly. The NHS has a finite amount of money and faces difficult decisions which will almost always draw criticism from somewhere. To be slightly provocative, do we support the routine vaccination of children, even those at significantly less risk, for CP and Men B (both potentially fatal) or do we stop, purely for example, offering IVF (infertility is not life threatening) on the NHS? I suppose it depends on your personal experience (both my sisters underwent IVF and I was treated for infertility which was resolved), hence we can't have an objective discussion here. It seems crass and insensitive indeed to put a price on a child's life. But that's exactly what the NHS must decide, across all ages in fact, all of the time.

Perhaps one answer is to have subsidised private vaccinations to anything other than 'core' illnesses. The core preventable illnesses would still however require an assessment of threat, risk and harm.

Myred, but they don't know that yet. If it is found to be effective then I'm sure there will be a catch up program.

Agree that a subsidised private vaccination scheme would be worth considering.

I wish there could be subsidised vaccinations it costs £180 to vaccinate a child against chicken pox at private clinic. The cost of travel vaccines are far less and it's possible to get those through your GP.

We shouldn't be debating whether chickenpox or meningitis b is more important. Ideally our children should be protected against both. At the moment most children have no protection from either.

I don't disagree Really but the NHS doesn't exist in ideal circumstances and is always robbing Peter to pay Paul. Presumably pharmaceutical companies charge more for producing Men B and CP vaccines. That said, if the NHS agreed to vaccinate all children I would think they could negotiate down the overall cost which could contribute towards reduced per vaccination cost. Together with a subsidy this could mean most parents can afford it. Don't get me wrong I've spent most of my life arguing against the fragmentation of the NHS into a two tier health service, but it cannot continue to take on more and more with no increase in its income or reduction in its costs. Something has to give and it's unlikely to be the government.

www.meningitis.org/ctc

Maybe total overhaul of nhs required, why do we fund smoking/drinking/drug related illness above the needs of a child?