Children's Services
Immunisation Services
The immunisation team delivers childhood Immunisations to children at school in Birmingham and Solihull, offering protection against disease.
About our service
In the UK, every child should be protected against preventable diseases and is entitled to free childhood immunisations. It is important that children are offered the chance to be vaccinated safely and effectively.
The national immunisation programme aims to give children the best protection against infectious diseases. It ensures that children are protected from infancy, through their teenage years and on to adulthood.
The high level of vaccine coverage has meant that dangerous, vaccine-preventable diseases, such as polio, are rare in the UK. However, experience shows that these diseases can come back if the number of immunised children falls - they are still around in many countries throughout the world.
The immunisation team delivers routine national childhood immunisations to children at school in Birmingham and Solihull, and to those that live within Birmingham and Solihull, offering protection against disease.
They visit more than 600 locations across the area every year to offer immunisation services to children and young people.
These venues include mainstream and special schools, behaviour support units, independent schools, patient homes and health centre-based vaccination clinics.
The team also administers vaccinations within the community to babies identified at risk of developing:
The team works closely with the School Nursing Team, special school nursing team , Health Visitors, Children in Care, and Midwifery Service.
Immunisations we provide
- 3-in-1 teenage booster (including meningitis)
- BCG
- Flu
- Hepatitis B
- Human papillomavirus (HPV)
- Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR)
More information
BCG
BCHC began administering the BCG vaccine to newborn babies in Birmingham and Solihull in April 2022.
The change to community immunisation teams (from providers of maternity and tuberculosis service providers) follows Public Health England (PHE) advice that babies are to be offered screening for severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) as part of the newborn blood spot test offered five days after birth.
As babies found to have SCID are unable to have live vaccines, PHE has advised that all reasonable efforts should be made to ensure a ‘not suspected’ SCID screen result before vaccinations are administered.
Parents or carers of babies whose SCID test is ‘not suspected’ will be invited to take their baby to an immunisation clinic near their home within about four weeks.
More information about the BCG vaccine
Flu
BCHC's immunisation team is responsible for administering the flu vaccine in primary and secondary schools in Birmingham and Solihull.
Downloads and links
- Birmingham Schools Flu Immunisation information booklet and consent form
- Flu: 5-reasons to vaccinate your child
- Protecting your child against flu
- NHS Choices
HPV
Girls and boys aged 12 to 13 years (born after 1 September 2006) are offered the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine as part of the NHS vaccination programme.
The HPV vaccine helps protect against cancers caused by HPV, including:
- cervical cancer
- some mouth and throat (head and neck) cancers
- some cancers of the anal and genital areas
It also helps protect against genital warts.
- HPVWISE: accessible information, including a section specifically for teenagers.