Hurley Group Practices Childhood Immunisation Campaign

 

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Childhood immunisations are one more way to keep them safe. You want to do what is best for your child. You know about the importance of car seats, stair gates, and other ways to keep them safe. But, did you know that one of the best ways to protect them is to make sure they have all of their vaccinations?

Immunisation is the process of delivering a vaccination to protect a person against a disease.

Vaccine is the product given during immunisation which your body uses to fight exposure to disease.

  • Immunisations can save your child’s life: some diseases continue to harm or kill children across the world. Don’t let your child be one of them.
  • Vaccines are very safe and effective: vaccines are only licensed for children after long and careful development and testing by researchers and doctors. Vaccines will involve some discomfort and may cause pain, redness, or tenderness at the site of injection but this is minimal compared to the pain, discomfort, and trauma of the diseases these vaccines prevent. Fever can be expected after any vaccination, but is more common with the Men B vaccine. Giving paracetamol soon after Men B vaccination – and not waiting for a fever to develop – will reduce the risk of your child having a fever. Serious side effects following vaccination, such as severe allergic reaction, are very rare.
  • Immunisation protects others you care about: some babies are too young to be protected by vaccination and others may not be able to receive certain vaccinations due to severe allergies, weakened immune systems from conditions like leukaemia, or other reasons. To help keep them safe, it is important that you and your children are fully immunised. This not only protects your family, but also helps prevent the spread of these diseases to your friends and loved ones.

Summary of the changes to the routine childhood schedule from 1 Jan 2026

  • The NHS childhood vaccination schedule has recently been updated to help give children even better protection against diseases. Changes include protecting children against some diseases earlier and adding vaccines that protect against more diseases.
  • From 1 January 2026, the MMRV vaccine replaced the MMR vaccine. The MMRV vaccine protects against 4 serious diseases: measles, mumps, rubella, and chickenpox (known as varicella). The MMRV vaccine has been safely used for many years as part of the routine childhood vaccination schedule in several countries, including Canada, Australia and Germany.

Learn more about the changes to the childhood vaccination schedule

Read more about the NHS vaccinations and when to have them

Published: Apr 29, 2026