There is no vaccination crisis in Scotland

From BBC InDepth today, the above and:

Over the last 15 years, childhood vaccination rates have fallen across Britain. The share of five-year-olds in England who have received a four-in-one jab (which protects against viruses like polio and tetanus) is now 81%, down from 89% in 2014. About 84% have received both of their recommended MMR (measles, mumps and rubella) jabs, down from 88% a decade ago.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0qvlw2dd0no

In Scotland, the level is better:

The 4-in-1 vaccine is offered at 3 years 4 months old and provides the booster dose (4th dose) of protection against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis and polio. 90.1% of children had the 4-in-1 booster at age 5 years; uptake was 91.1% among children aged 6 years.

https://www.publichealthscotland.scot/publications/childhood-immunisation-statistics-scotland/childhood-immunisation-statistics-scotland-quarter-and-year-ending-31-march-2026/

Scotland is typically better protected by higher vaccine uptake levels for a range of risks:

Scotland’s measles vaccination rate remains high but faces risk of outbreaks seeded from the 80% of cases which are imported via Europe and England
Flu cases decline steeply in Scotland more than two weeks ahead of England after Swinney had launched vaccine programme more than two weeks earlier
Higher meningitis vaccine uptake in Scotland at 94.3% by 12 months should reduce infection significantly according to Lancet research report

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One thought on “There is no vaccination crisis in Scotland”

  1. To follow up on this vaccination topic, the BBC News article also has this:

    ‘… all of the public health experts who spoke to the BBC said that whilst anti-vax social media sentiment plays its part, they don’t think it’s the main reason immunisation rates have slipped. Instead, they point to something more mundane: they think that parents of young children simply have fewer face-to-face contacts with medical professionals than they did 10 or 15 years ago.’ (my emphasis)

    From one researcher: ‘vaccination rates are highest when parents regularly interact with medics, who can remind them to get their children jabbed and tell them exactly where to do it. And those interactions have become rarer.

    ‘England has seen a 45% decline over the last decade in the number of health visitors (nurses and midwives who treat young children at their home), according to BBC analysis. It’s part of a health visitor’s job to remind parents about vaccines and, in some cases, administer jabs directly.’

    See this from TuS (April 20, 2026): Health visitors in England are key to Labour’s preventative strategy but they’re plummeting there after two years in government while Scotland after 19 years of the SNP has four times as many per head, twice the essential continuity and twice the visits

    Health visitors in England are key to Labour’s preventative strategy but they’re plummeting there after two years in government while Scotland after 19 years of the SNP has four times as many per head, twice the essential continuity and twice the visits

    More generally, this BBC News website article on the subject of vaccination is a ‘classic’ of BBC reporting – seamless shifts between references to ‘Britain’/’British’ and ‘England’/’English’ in a report purportedly on a UK ‘issues’ but based only on data from England!

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