Immunisation Clinical Advice Response Service
Dear immunisation colleagues,
I am writing to you from the Immunisation Clinical Advice Response Service (ICARS) with some information about our service and a toolkit for the management of patients with unknown or incomplete immunisation histories.
ICARS is part is part of NHS England (London Region) and aims to provide public health guidance to clinicians administering all vaccines commissioned under Section 7a or COVID-19 programmes, and to respond to clinical incidents as they arise in these programmes. ICARS operates Monday-Friday, 9am-5pm (excepting bank holidays) and endeavours to respond to enquiries within two-three working days.
We can support with queries about scheduling, eligibility, vaccine contraindications in relation to any of the routine immunisation programmes including COVID-19 and Mpox.
Please find attached a step-by-step guide to support the management of vaccinating patients where their immunisation history is unknown or incomplete. There is also lots of guidance and information about immunisations here NHS England — London » Immunisations. However if you can’t find the answer please contact us by email london.immunisationqueriescars@nhs.net.
Examples of immunisation incidents include: the administration of expired vaccine, incorrect vaccine, incomplete dose of vaccine given, duplicate vaccine being given, administration of vaccines that have not been stored correctly and breaches in cold chain. In the event of a clinical immunisation incident relating to COVID-19 or Section 7A vaccination programmes in London please complete an Incident form as soon as possible or email ICARS.
Please see here Vaccine incident guidance: Responding to errors in vaccine storage, handling and administration (publishing.service.gov.uk) for more information about how to manage vaccine incidents.
Please also see our recently updated website (as above) NHS England — London » Immunisations which contains lots of information and useful resources.
Please share our contact details with those working in vaccinations and please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or immunisation queries/incidents.
Thank you
Kind regards
Katie Redfern
Immunisation Clinical Advice Response Service (ICARS)
NHS England – London Region