Child and adolescent immunisation in the UK: current issues

The UK immunisation programme for children and adolescents is highly successful with generally high uptake of vaccines and low rates of vaccine preventable diseases. However, for the past 10 years there has been a year on year small but concerning decrease in vaccine uptake. This was accelerated by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this article we consider the reasons for less-than-optimal vaccine uptake, discuss recent changes to the schedule and describe the significant further changes in prospect.