Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what action they are taking to improve consistency by healthcare professionals in reminding parents to vaccinate their children.

The Department is aware that effective reminder systems are likely to be a key factor in improving vaccine uptake. This was highlighted in the January 2019 Royal Society for Public Health report Moving the Needle, which noted that such services are desired by 80% of United Kingdom adults surveyed. As such, the Department is considering options for improved, and more consistent, methods for reminding parents of vaccination appointments, including rolling out a text reminder service, as announced by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care in November 2019.

More widely, the Government is committed to publishing a national Vaccine Strategy as announced in July 2019 as part of the Prevention Green Paper, Advancing our health: prevention in the 2020s. The strategy, which will be published shortly, carefully considers an array of options to improve our vaccine uptake rates.