Developing Well Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA)

Health protection in 5–16 year olds

During 2016/17 child immunisation rates across Rochdale borough were generally better than the national average according to Public Health England (PHE).

What is health protection?

Health protection refers to actions we might take to protect the population's health from major incidents and other threats (PHE, 2018). This is achieved through a number of programmes including vaccinations, antibiotic prescription monitoring and other types of screening, as well as the monitoring of, and actions around, outbreaks of disease.

Childhood immunisations

The NHS offers everyone many different vaccinations to help protect us from infectious diseases. The NHS usually gives the injections during childhood, in particular during our first few months and years of life.

Common vaccinations given to older children include:

  • 3-in-1 teenage booster for diphtheria, tetanus and polio
  • HPV vaccine for girls only which protects against cervical cancer
  • MenACWY vaccine which protects against meningitis types A, C, W and Y bacteria

Statistics on health protection

Guidance and information on health protection

  • National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) guidance - Immunisation - NICE has produced a number of guidance documents on immunisations including topics on reducing differences in uptake in under 19s, a pathway of recommendations for immunisations and shared learning examples of community engagement to increase childhood immunisations.
  • NHS Choices - the NHS Choices website includes a checklist of vaccinations that are routinely offered for free on the NHS.