Prenatal pertussis vaccination coverage in England from July to September 2025
Updated 19 December 2025
Applies to England
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Main points
This quarterly report evaluates prenatal pertussis vaccine coverage for women who delivered from July 2025 to September 2025, second quarter of the 2025 to 2026 financial year.
The main findings were that:
- coverage was 70.9% in July 2025, 71.9% in August 2025 and 72.9% in September 2025
- coverage for quarter 2 was 71.9%, which was 7.5 percentage points higher than quarter 2 coverage in the previous financial year
- coverage by Commissioning Region ranged from 64.4% in London to 78.9% in the South West
Note: A new point of care app developed by NHSE to record vaccination events was introduced in September 2024. The Record a Vaccination service (RAVs) has improved dataflows into general practice which may partially account for the increase in coverage reported in recent months.
Introduction
This report presents pertussis vaccine coverage in pregnant women in England for the period July to September 2025.
The pertussis vaccine has been offered to pregnant women since 1 October 2012 following a period of increased pertussis activity in all age groups, including infants under 3 months of age, and the declaration of a national pertussis outbreak in April 2012.
In June 2014, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) advised it should continue for a further 5 years. In February 2016, the JCVI considered new evidence demonstrating that vaccination earlier in pregnancy would increase opportunities during pregnancy for vaccination, without detrimentally affecting the protection afforded to the infant. Based on this, JCVI advised that vaccination could be offered from gestational week 16, although for operational reasons vaccination should ideally be offered from around 20 weeks, on or after the foetal anomaly scan.
This advice was implemented from April 2016 as was offering the vaccine through general practice as well as some maternity services. In 2019, following the JCVI recommendation, the prenatal pertussis vaccine became a routine programme in England.
The prenatal pertussis vaccination programme aims to minimise disease, hospitalisation and deaths in young infants, through the intra-uterine transfer of maternal antibodies, until they can be actively protected by the routine infant programme with the first dose of pertussis vaccine scheduled at 8 weeks of age.
Methods
General practice (GP) level pertussis vaccine coverage data is automatically uploaded via participating GP IT suppliers to the ImmForm website each month. ImmForm data is validated and analysed by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) to check data completeness, identify, and query any anomalous data and describe epidemiological trends. Since April 2016 (implementation date varied by GP IT supplier) the following monthly data has been collected:
- denominator: number of women who delivered in the survey month, excluding miscarriages and stillbirths, regardless of gestational age
- numerator: number of women receiving pertussis vaccination between week 16 of pregnancy and delivery
For accurate denominators to be extracted from GP IT systems by the automated survey and precise coverage estimates to be calculated, it is important that the medical records of all women who have given birth have the following fields completed:
- the date of delivery
- the date of receipt of a pertussis-containing vaccine at or after week 16 of pregnancy, regardless of the setting where the vaccine was administered
- where relevant, fields indicating stillbirth or miscarriage
Coverage by Commissioning Region (based on the 2019 NHS England configurations), local authority, ICB and Sub ICB are reported in the data tables associated with this report.
Participation and data quality
All GP IT suppliers provided data for the second quarter of the 2025 to 2026 financial year. National GP practice participation was at 99.1% in July 2025, 99.1% in August 2025 and 98.9% in September 2025.
Results
Summary
For quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year:
- coverage was 71.9% which was 7.5 percentage points higher than quarter 2 coverage in the previous financial year
- coverage was 70.9% in July 2025, 71.9% in August 2025 and 72.9% in September 2025
- coverage by Commissioning Region varied by 14.5 percentage points, from 64.4% in London to 78.9% in the South West
- coverage by Integrated Care Board varied by 29.8 percentage points, from 54.1% in the Birmingham and Solihull ICB to 83.8% in the Hampshire and Isle of Wight ICB
- coverage in the London Commissioning Region has gradually increased from 35.5% in September 2023 to 65.1% in September 2025
Data on coverage by Commissioning Region, ICB, Sub ICB and local authority is available in the data tables associated with this report.
Table 1. Pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women by Commissioning Region, in quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year
| Commissioning Region code | Commissioning Region name | Coverage in July 2025 | Coverage in August 2025 (%) | Coverage in September 2025 (%) | Coverage in Quarter 2 (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Y56 | London | 64.4 | 63.9 | 65.1 | 64.4 |
| Y58 | South West | 76.8 | 79.5 | 80.6 | 78.9 |
| Y59 | South East | 77.2 | 77.5 | 78.2 | 77.6 |
| Y60 | Midlands | 70.4 | 71.6 | 71.6 | 71.2 |
| Y61 | East of England | 71.1 | 72.9 | 72.9 | 72.3 |
| Y62 | North West | 67.3 | 68.9 | 70.9 | 69.0 |
| Y63 | North East and Yorkshire | 71.6 | 73.1 | 74.7 | 73.1 |
Figure 1. Monthly pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women from April 2016 to September 2025 [Note 2]
Note: Data from the smallest IT supplier was excluded between November to December 2019.
Figure 2. Monthly pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women from April 2016 to September 2025 [Note 2]
Note: Data from the smallest IT supplier was excluded between November to December 2019.
Figure 3. Map of pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women by Sub ICB, in quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year
Figure 4. Map of pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women by local authority in England and London, in quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year
Coverage by ethnicity
The main findings for coverage by ethnicity were that:
- coverage varied by 44.7 percentage points between ethnic groups
- coverage was the highest in Other Ethnic Group Chinese (87.9%) and lowest in Black or Black British Caribbean (43.2%) (Table 2)
Table 2. Pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women by ethnicity, in quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year
| Ethnicity | Coverage (%) |
|---|---|
| Asian or Asian British - Any other Asian background | 72.5 |
| Asian or Asian British - Bangladeshi | 67.6 |
| Asian or Asian British - Indian | 79.3 |
| Asian or Asian British - Pakistani | 56.9 |
| Black or Black British - African | 60.9 |
| Black or Black British - Any other Black background | 54.4 |
| Black or Black British - Caribbean | 43.2 |
| Mixed - Any other Mixed background | 63.3 |
| Mixed - White and Black African | 63.4 |
| Mixed - White and Asian | 71.1 |
| Mixed - White and Black Caribbean | 55.2 |
| Ethnicity not stated | 67.2 |
| Other ethnic groups - Any other ethnic group | 58.7 |
| Other ethnic groups - Chinese | 87.9 |
| Patients with any other background | 72.4 |
| White - Any other background | 60.5 |
| White - British | 78.3 |
| White - Irish | 70.3 |
Coverage by IMD Decile
The main findings for coverage by IMD decile [Note 3] were that:
- coverage varied by 18.6 percentage points between IMD deciles
- coverage was 80.4% in the least deprived decile and 61.8% in the most deprived decile (Table 3)
Note: Coverage by IMD decile is calculated based on 2025 IMD deciles and GP postcode.
Table 3. Pertussis vaccination coverage (%) in pregnant women by IMD decile, in quarter 2 of the 2025 to 2026 financial year
| IMD Decile | Coverage (%) |
|---|---|
| 1 | 61.8 |
| 2 | 66.2 |
| 3 | 70.8 |
| 4 | 72.6 |
| 5 | 74.3 |
| 6 | 76.8 |
| 7 | 76.7 |
| 8 | 78.0 |
| 9 | 80.1 |
| 10 | 80.4 |
Discussion
This is the second quarterly report of the 2025 to 2026 financial year and evaluates pertussis vaccine coverage for women who delivered from July 2025 to September 2025. During this quarter, monthly prenatal pertussis vaccine coverage was 70.9% in July 2025, 71.9% in August 2025 and 72.9% in September 2025. Coverage by Commissioning Region varied by 14.5 percentage points. Coverage was lowest in the London Commissioning Region, although has increased by 25.0 percentage points since April 2024.
A new point of care app developed by NHSE to record vaccination events was introduced in September 2024. The Record a Vaccination service (RAVs) has improved dataflows into general practice which may partially account for the increase in coverage reported in recent months.
Limitations to the data presented in this report may explain some of the observed variability in coverage at the local level and over time. First, completeness of data is reliant on the recording of delivery dates in the mother’s medical records and a recent study in England suggests that maternity notes regarding pregnancy and delivery are often scanned or archived, rather than coded in an extractable format. Furthermore, a comparison of these denominator data with national data on live births indicates that in 2022, this data represented about 73% of the population of pregnant women.
Continued support in the delivery of this important programme has been sought from service providers (GP practices and maternity units), Screening and Immunisation Teams, and Health Protection Teams. Screening and Immunisation Teams should continue to update service providers on the current epidemiology of the disease and the need to maintain and improve coverage achieved thus far.
If coverage, and ultimately the impact of the programme itself, is to be accurately monitored, GPs and practice nurses must continue to ensure that vaccination and date of delivery are recorded in the patient’s GP record. In areas that have commissioned maternity units to offer pertussis vaccines in pregnancy, providers must ensure doses of vaccines given to individual women are also communicated to the woman’s GP, where these are not captured in automated systems. Maternity units not offering pertussis vaccines to pregnant women should continue to discuss its importance, make use of available resources, and signpost the woman to her GP to receive the vaccine. GPs, practice nurses, obstetricians, and midwives should continue to encourage pregnant women to receive the pertussis vaccine, ideally, between weeks 20 and 32 of their pregnancy (but up to term) to optimise protection for their babies from birth.