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In February 2015, Public Health England (PHE) presented data to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) on a continuing increase in MenW disease in England and Wales since 2009, with the most recent cases increasing in an accelerated manner.

JCVI agreed this constituted an outbreak situation and that population level control of MenW was required with urgency, to reduce the risk of further rapid increases in disease across the population.

JCVI advised that there should be a programme to vaccinate all adolescents aged 14-18 years. Vaccination of this cohort is expected to protect the young people themselves and to provide herd protection for the wider population.

The purpose of the service is to enable NHS England to commission MenACWY immunisation services of sufficient quantity and quality to prevent the infections and outbreaks caused by these organisms.

The JCVI advised that there was an outbreak of Meningococcal W in 2016 and a vaccination programme of all 14-18 year old patients was agreed. The completing dose and 18 years on 31 August programmes to achieve this have now been combined.

The conjugate vaccine (ACWY) will be provided by central supply for all patients in this cohort.

In addition, the programme to vaccinate first year university students (freshers) is to continue. The intention is to provide the quadrivalent ACWY vaccine to these patients.

From 1 April 2018, the Meningococcal completing dose (booster) vaccination is included in this service.

NHS England Regional teams commission this service from GP practices.

NHS England service specifications

NHS Employers Vaccination and Immunisation guidance

Information about this service

Quality service start date: 1 April 2020

Quality service end date: 31 March 2021

Payment period: Monthly

Collection frequency: Monthly

Manual or automatic entry: Automatic - not all services start automatic extraction at the start of service - refer to online timetable for full details

Included in data collection: All system suppliers (TPP, INPS, Microtest and Emis)

The Calculating Quality Reporting Service (CQRS) user guides describe how to participate, manually enter and declare achievement for this service. Activity and achievement should be recorded monthly.

Commissioners and practice should refer to our supporting business rules for information on management information counts and clinical codes.

Further information to support users can be found on the SNOMED CT Implementation in Primary Care site, including Codes to support Technical Requirements 18-19 -  a document providing appropriate Read v2 and CTV3 codes for SNOMED CT concept IDs.