To say rates of childhood vaccination would be higher if reminders were sent out

[Binjob118]

Hi, I have older and younger kids. I remember clearly getting reminder letters for immunisations when my older kids were little. It seemed to stop about 15 years ago. Is it just my health authority? We have headlines all the time about low take up of childhood vaccination, surely reminders are a no brainer. I just booked my 4 year olds preschool booster and wonder what the rates of take up are given parents have to remember/ know in the first place?

So far I’ve had reminders for all my kids vaccines, eldest is 3yrs old, I’m in Cumbria.

My DC's are only 7 and 4 so quite recent but my GP's ring when they are due their vaccinations.
I don't know what the normal is.

I get reminders from the GP - I'm not surprised people forget if they don't!!

We get appointments sent out. Just had one for 4 year booster and another for flu. In Scotland so might be different here.

I think most GP's will ring/text remind these days.

Perhaps your GP doesn't have an up to date number for you?

Also you should get reminders from school for pre-school boosters in their welcome letters.

I personally think we should all be more proactive with our own health in this country. Compared to other European countries, we always seem to be very reticent about self reliance.

Definitely get reminders here (Warwickshire)

I got reminders from mine. And regular calls from the HV when we delayed Dd2s (following a bad lung infection).

DD2s preschool class all had their preschool boosters on the same day at a special clinic.

I've never had a single reminder and my child is 3.5. Definitely would be a good idea

We didn’t get reminders (in a London borough), my very helpful and more organised nct friends sent out reminders 😂

@BigWoollyJumpers

I think most GP's will ring/text remind these days.

Perhaps your GP doesn't have an up to date number for you?

Also you should get reminders from school for pre-school boosters in their welcome letters.

I personally think we should all be more proactive with our own health in this country. Compared to other European countries, we always seem to be very reticent about self reliance.

I was talking to a French mum and she was saying in France you get called for regular check ups and if you don't go they chase you whereas, whereas now she lives in England they rely on you going only if you know you have symptoms.

We get text reminders here in London. Probably down as anti vaxxers though since we take her private as the NHS GP makes it too difficult to interact with them so beyond being registered, we don’t bother with them at all.

Scotland it’s the immunisation teams who deal with childhood imms so they send out reminders etc so perhaps different elsewhere. I’ve always had a letter for pre school with an appointment you can change or at school it comes via school home and is returned to school. Nothing to do with gp directly.

Mine are pre schoolers and I've always had letter reminders! It's automatic as I've had a couple even though they have appointments booked. You continue to receive reminder letters until they actually receive the jabs or you write to say you have opted out!

My GP surgery was totally on it with this baby, they called up and booked her in for the first round, then made the 12 and 16 week appointments each time before I left the surgery.

With the eldest, we were living elsewhere and got no reminders, this was before covid so they refused to even register her without a birth certificate. We had a backlog at the register office and no certificate until 6 weeks old, then they couldn't give her an appointment for another 4 weeks - so everything was delayed a fortnight due to admin and a "computer says no" attitude.

It seems to be a postcode lottery and that isn't right.

Thanks for all the replies. It definitely seems an area thing. I'm definitely registered, get text reminders for appointments etc I may raise this with my local health authority. I live in a very multi ethnic area and it's really important everyone gets reminded.

People receive appointment letters. For most people, it’s not hard to make a note.

For my youngest, I got a reminder but my GP surgery couldn’t do them because they didn’t have a practice nurse. The whole surgery closed down a couple of months after but there was no information about that then, just told there was no nurse. And changing surgery was difficult because they were so fussy about the forms of ID they’d accept. My husband had to register him in the end. So I’m not surprised people give up.

I personally think we should all be more proactive with our own health in this country. Compared to other European countries, we always seem to be very reticent about self reliance.

IMHO this is one of the problems with the NHS. Proving something free means people don’t value it and aren’t bothered about taking responsibility for their own outcomes - they just expect someone else to do it for them.

@MaskingForIt

I personally think we should all be more proactive with our own health in this country. Compared to other European countries, we always seem to be very reticent about self reliance.

IMHO this is one of the problems with the NHS. Proving something free means people don’t value it and aren’t bothered about taking responsibility for their own outcomes - they just expect someone else to do it for them.

I completely disagree. The NHS is a wonderful system. Of course it has issues but compared to countries with no social health provision its first class

I’ve never had a reminder and the letter always comes at least a month before the appointment. I’ve never missed one but I am a fairly organised person. We used to get text reminders for GP appointments pre-covid but they’ve stopped doing it now because of covid? I don’t know why.

We get a yellow slip stating time and date of appointment as well as details of the vaccines due to be given through the post.
Maybe it differs in different LAs.

We get an automated letter stating an appointing and which vaccination it is for. Now we're past the first 12mths of needing regular jabs, I think I'd forget to book it in myself. (Yorkshire)

I’ve never had a reminder and the letter always comes at least a month before the appointment.

But the letter acts as a reminder. The OP is talking about areas that don’t send anything and the requirement is on the parent to remember and call the surgery to make an appointment.

We get a text reminder if we’re more than a month past the due date. I think this is actually quite important because whilst parents could check the nhs website, there are variations across areas due to local specific factors (we get mmr booster earlier here, for example).

We get sent a letter stating "an appointment has been made for your child on xxx date of xx month".I once phoned up to change the appointment as I was working that day and was asked the reason why I couldn't "keep the appointment".