Vaccination: Children
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of vaccination rates for routine childhood immunisations in (a) Birmingham, Edgbaston, (b) Birmingham and (c) the West Midlands.
Answered by Ashley Dalton
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) monitors trends in the level of childhood vaccination rates by upper tier local authority (UTLA), region and country level.
Edgbaston falls within the Birmingham UTLA. From 2013/14 to 2023/24, coverage of the first dose of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR1) vaccine in children aged five years old has decreased by 7.1 percentage points to 87.0% in Birmingham and 3.5 percentage points to 91.9% in the West Midlands. In comparison, the 2023/24 MMR1 coverage in England was 91.4%.
The most recent figures, published in December 2024, show immunisations coverage across all vaccines in children aged one and two years old was 80% or higher in Birmingham and 87% or higher in the West Midlands, in comparison to 87% or higher in England overall. Coverage was slightly lower in children aged five years old, at or above 74% in Birmingham and at or above 82% in the West Midlands, in comparison to 81% or higher in England overall. No local authority in the West Midlands had coverage exceeding the World Heath Organization (WHO) target of 95% in all the routine childhood immunisations.
Data on coverage of all routine childhood immunisations are published quarterly by UKHSA, and annually by NHS England. They are available at the following links:
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