Maternal Pertussis Vaccination Programme and Update on RAVS

As part of the NHS vaccination strategy, NHS England have developed Record a Vaccination Service (RAVS). This service will enable a better experience for front-line staff, reduce administrative burden, improve capture and sharing of vaccination information across the provider network, and result in increased visibility of vaccinations delivered by maternity services.

NHS England Vaccination & Screening national team ask HoPH to circulate the information below to their commissioned maternal pertussis vaccination providers (GP and maternity services), to ensure preparedness from 1 Sept 2024.

Call to Action – For Maternity Services delivering the maternal pertussis vaccination programme to commence recording pertussis vaccinations in RAVS from 1 September

From 1 September, maternity services will be using Record a Vaccination Service (RAVS) to record maternal vaccinations – COVID, Flu, Pertussis and RSV. NHS England will enable Pertussis and RSV vaccination events to automatically flow to the GP patient record, along with COVID and Flu.

When these vaccination events will be visible in the GP patient record will depend upon GP IT system supplier development. It is anticipated these vaccination events will be visible no later than 11 October, at which point any vaccinations given and captured in RAVS from 1 September will flow.

This means GPs will no longer need to manually add pertussis vaccinations events to the patient record where they have been administered by maternity services. Maternity services should consider any existing GP notification processes they have in place, and whether these need to continue.

To note, vaccinations will need to continue to be recorded in maternity service systems to maintain completeness of the maternity record.

Call to Action – GP practices to stop all manual recording processes to capture pertussis vaccinations given by maternity services from 1 September

From 1 September, maternity services will be using Record a Vaccination Service (RAVS) to record Pertussis and RSV. Recording in RAVS will enable vaccination events to automatically flow to the GP patient record, as is in place for COVID and flu. This means where pertussis vaccinations are given by another healthcare provider and recorded in RAVS, from 1September, GPs will no longer need to manually add these events to the patient record.

The exact time when these vaccination events will be visible in the GP patient record will depend upon GP IT system supplier development. It is anticipated these vaccination events will be visible no later than 11 October, at which point any vaccinations given from 1 September will flow.

To note, GP practices administering RSV and pertussis vaccinations to pregnant women will not be required to use RAVS but will continue to record these vaccinations using their usual GP IT system. Additionally, there will be no changes to the flow of pertussis vaccination data from practices onto Immform for reporting purposes.

We would like to thank regional colleagues for all their support and feedback on the implementation of RAVS. For any queries, please contact us via our generic email.

[email protected]