After reading the letters about vaccine misinformation and hesitancy (Measles surge shows why vaccinations are crucial, 20 July), I felt I must write to tell you of one unrecognised cause of the drop in vaccine uptake: when I worked as a community school nursing sister in the 1980s, with 11 state schools and a number of private schools that took up the vaccine service, we had 98% uptake of vaccines in the school setting. This was due to the system of sending letters home to parents requesting their consent and following up by phone, if necessary, by the school office staff. The children came in class batches.
Then the local health authority decided that this service should be discontinued and parents were invited to take their child to the local GP surgery for their vaccinations. The uptake plummeted to less than 40% of eligible children due to children not taking the letters home, or parents forgetting or losing the letter – or being unable to take time off to take their child to the surgery. When I asked the GPs at the local health centre what the uptake for the cohort of eligible children was, they looked at their records and were surprised, but reluctant to do anything about it.
