Vaccine and cold chain incident management

National and regional guidance is available to support health care professionals to respond to errors in vaccine storage, handling and administration.

Please note that while the principles for investigating cold chain incidents should be followed, not all the advice may apply to the coronavirus COVID-19 vaccines.

For incidents involving COVID-19 vaccines please contact your systems vaccination operation centre (SVOC).

The national guidance on Vaccine Incident Guidance

NHS England East of England’s Cold Chain Policy V8 Nov 2024

East Of England Cold Chain Toolkit V2.1 (to be used in conjunction with the EoE Cold Chain Policy document)

SPS Refrigerated medicines stability tool

Vaccines stored outside recommended temperature range leaflet

National resources for Off-label vaccine leaflets

Any vaccines that need to be discarded must be reported on the ImmForm website

Vaccine Storage Audit Form 

Vaccine Incidents poster

New Electronic Vaccine Incident Reporting Form (East of England region only)

As you are aware, incident reporting in all healthcare settings is vitally important. When things go wrong, it is often a system failure; reporting is not about blame or highlighting individuals, it is about sharing information. Incident reporting allows us to share lessons identified which will improve patient safety and care quality. It also allows us to develop interventions and mitigate risks.

As a region, it would help us greatly if any immunisation and vaccinations incidents, events or near misses could be sent to us to allow us to offer our support and highlight any necessary changes to process needed.

We have recently developed an electronic incident form which can be accessed here:  Vaccine Incident Reporting Form . We hope this will make reporting incidents easier for everyone.

Once submitted, the form will automatically be sent to your local Screening & Immunisation Team (SIT), and you should receive an automated acknowledgement that the form has been submitted (if you do not receive an acknowledgement of submission, please contact RVOC: england.eoe-vacprg@nhs.net). If your SIT requires any further information, they will contact you (usually within 2 working days). If you do not hear from your SIT, please assume that we have all the necessary information and have logged and closed the incident.

If you have any difficulty accessing the electronic form the original vaccine incident reporting form, remains available for use or you can share a copy of your local reporting form. We appreciate you sharing the information in any format.

For any incident reported outside Monday – Friday 9am – 5pm that requires a response/action, please contact the Health Protection Team at UKSHA.

 

Links to other useful sites

Please ensure guidance is accessed through the links provided. Any items printed off for future use many quickly become out of date.