Immunisation

What is the Division's Immunisation program?
The Division's Immunisation program supports GPs and Practice Staff to work within the National Immunisation Program (NIP), deliver the Australian Standard Vaccination Schedule (ASVS), use the National Immunisation Handbook, and participate in the General Practice Immunisation Incentives Scheme (GPII).

Program aims
The program supports GPs and general practices as they deliver vaccines to adults and children and assist in limiting vaccine preventable diseases in the community. The Division takes a systematic approach to support GPs and practice staff to comply with current immunisation programs and ensure that quality immunisation practices are delivered.

How does this happen?
The program has a program manager and a GP Advisor who assist with providing education and information to practices and answer queries or issues as they are raised.

The program manager:

• Regularly disseminates guidelines, resources and the latest information on new government initiatives
• Provides follow up support as required
• Organises ongoing education
• Collaborates with other organisations and service providers to promote and support quality immunisation practices
• Accesses reports from the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register (ACIR)
• Provides the information to general practices on a regular basis  to reduce the number of children currently listed as overdue for scheduled vaccines.

This allows practices to maintain accurate immunisation records resulting in a high level of cover rates for fully immunised children. The Division also aims to maintain a high percentage of children fully immunised.

All general practices in the Division's area are registered with the General Practice Immunisation Incentive (GPII) scheme, Practices are encouraged to follow up on quarterly reports sent to them from GPII and maintain a rate of 90% or above (for children fully immunised) to guarantee quarterly payments from the scheme.