Socially or materially marginal children are less likely to be fully immunised—a systems response

Samad and colleagues have neatly shown what we already know: children born into circumstances that are socially or materially marginal are less likely to be fully immunised.1 At age 9 months immunisation rates in the UK are high (> 95% fully immunised); the challenges posed by Samad et al's paper are the challenges associated with reaching that last small percentage of children. This is in the context of the UK healthcare system, which is universal and doesn't impose user charges. Samad et al have shown also that children who are unimmunised fall into two groups: those from …