Communities want to have more conversations about vaccinations

Vaccines play a crucial role in keeping us and our communities healthy, and they do this throughout our lives, starting at 8 weeks of age until adulthood. Falling childhood immunisation uptake in the UK is concerning, and it's the reason why we need to work closely with communities to understand how we can make the vaccination programme work better for them.

RSPH conducted a community-based pilot in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to explore and understand the experiences and perceptions of parents and carers from different community groups. They told us that:  

1. Information needs to better serve communities: Communications should be culturally competent, and people should have more time to digest all this information before deciding what to do about their children’s health. 
2. Vaccine promotion should be enhanced: With more campaigns and more information from research and development to potential side effects and how to deal with them.  
3. They think the vaccination system is broken: Parents and carers thought that appointments were rushed and a box-ticking exercise, and healthcare professionals were frustrated for being unable to support people as they would like to.  
4. More spaces and opportunities for conversations on vaccinations are needed: Parents and carers want to make decisions from an empowered position. To do this, they need chances to ask questions and get support before the vaccine is offered. These opportunities could be created in spaces we already have, such as GP clinics, libraries and schools. Healthcare professionals have a similar understanding and highlighted that more information should be shared with parents and carers in places convenient to them.

Key recommendations

We must support the public health workforce in delivering information on vaccines in a way that works for communities: Health visitors, school nurses, and community pharmacies can play a more significant role in this conversation on childhood immunisations. But they need proper support to deliver services to the level they want to. 

We must upskill the entire Wider Public Health Workforce so they can better support communities: Community health champions and other members of the wider public health workforce (people who do not directly work with public health but engage in public health activities) could also play a role in vaccinations, by engaging in conversations with locals and offering some level of assistance.  

Information and communication strategies should be co-produced with the communities they are aimed at, ensuring they are culturally competent. Information needs to be transmitted in a way that makes sense for communities and their traditions. Co-producing content would ensure communications are meaningful to them. 

Continuity of care must be restored on the vaccination system.  Continuity of care is also about delivering services in a coherent and timely way, addressing people’s needs. A strategy to improve continuity of care, bringing together everyone from NHS bodies and local authorities to school trusts and GPs, must be implemented so that the vaccination system works for everyone from start to finish.  

Space for conversations where parents are, particularly in areas where childhood vaccination rates are declining or are low, working within existing services and with the wider workforce to ensure that parents know where to go for information on vaccines and to have their questions answered. Different areas will have different approaches to this, based on local requirements. These could offer vaccinations for the people attending, but the main goal should be to give information and provide support in ways that work for local communities in convenient venues.