Helen Donovan and Helen Bedford outline the new programme of vaccinations offered to young patients to enable nurses to provide appropriate advice

Vaccination programmes are implemented either in response to a specific situation, or as new vaccines become available or evidence about them accumulates. Significant changes to the UK child and adolescent immunisation schedule have been implemented from 2013. Rotavirus vaccine was introduced for infants in July 2013. The influenza vaccination programme is being extended to include all two to 16 year olds eventually and, since September 2013, is being offered to all two and three year olds. To ensure protection against meningococcal C infection into adulthood, the immunisation schedule has been further modified. Since October 2012, in response to an increase in the number of cases of pertussis, particularly among young babies, all pregnant women have been offered a pertussis-containing vaccine during the last trimester of pregnancy. Large outbreaks of measles, particularly in Swansea and the north east of England, prompted a national campaign that was launched in April 2013 to ensure that all children and young people have received two doses of measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.