• Hundreds more teenagers get potentially life-saving HPV vaccine under simplified process
• New digital system also delivers 13% increase in flu vaccinations
• West Midlands roll-out to follow by April this year

Hundreds more teenagers have received a potentially life-saving cancer vaccination thanks to improvements to NHS communications.

A new digital system of keeping in contact with parents is resulting in increased vaccinations uptake among school children in parts of the West Midlands.

The Managing Vaccinations in Schools (MAVIS) programme has been developed by the NHS with the involvement of staff working in school-aged immunisations teams.

The project team identified that gaining consent from parents of school children for immunisations was one of the most difficult and time-consuming parts of the process and worked towards a system that made it more straightforward. And it is proving very successful in gaining responses from parents.

The latest uptake statistics (published Thursday 29 Jan) show an increase of 382 children having the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination, which protects against cervical and head and neck cancers.

The system has also delivered huge increases to flu vaccine uptake – rising by 12.8% in Coventry and 11.8% in Warwickshire from the previous year.

The previous process for gaining consent for vaccinations relied on schools sending letters either digitally or on paper as well as reminders. Parents then either returned them to the school or filled out an online consent form in time for them to be available to the NHS SAIS teams on vaccination day.

With MAVIS, schools contact parents once – to inform them of the process and from then on, contact can be directly between the NHS and parents.

Dr Ash Banerjee Public Health Consultant with NHS England in the West Midlands, said: “Once the teams have permission to contact parents direct we can send the right information to parents as many times as they want or need it. With parents who do not immediately respond, we can follow up and do reminders – especially with how to get ready for the day of immunisations – reminding them of the importance of youngsters having breakfast in case they feel faint.

“Some parents do not give their consent. We can call these families, and in some cases solve the problems parents have – for instance, arranging a clinic visit with parents if a child is nervous, or if parents want to be present.”

MAVIS has run since early 2025 in Coventry and Warwickshire and since Autumn 2025 in Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland. Other areas of the Midlands are beginning to adopt, and by April, children in Birmingham and Solihull, Staffordshire and Stoke on Trent, Black Country, Herefordshire and Worcestershire and Northamptonshire will be able to benefit from the improved digital communications.