The WIPH Clinical Effectiveness Group (CEG) is collaborating with the NHS to provide software tools and intelligence to inform the logistics of the polio booster campaign and ease the burden for GPs in North East London.
Following the discovery of poliovirus samples in London sewage, the NHS announced a Polio Booster Campaign, to offer every child aged 1-9 in London a polio vaccine before 25 September. The vaccination will provide a top-up dose for children already routinely immunised, and protect others who are not up to date.
The logistics to deliver these immunisations at scale and within an urgent timeframe are complex. Within days of the campaign announcement, CEG provided intelligence to plan the number of vaccines required to immunisation leads at NHS North East London Health and Care Partnership, including analyses of patient record data by practice, Primary Care Network, and Commissioning Board. CEG primary care facilitators are assisting GP practices by providing patient record searches to enable them to plan their capacity to deliver doses, a digital template to update patient records with standardised codes that will allow campaign activity to be measured, and guidance for using the CEG childhood immunisation software tool APL-Imms to prioritise the most vulnerable children, who are behind on their routine immunisation schedule, or have not been immunised against polio. CEG is sharing its coding, methods, and resources with NHS England, and with NHS teams across London to assist other regions with their urgent response to the polio threat.