Discrepancies in immunization records

N. S. B. Rawson
R. Alderslade
D. L. Miller

Department of Community Medicine, The Middlesex Hospital Medical School

Professor D. L. Miller, Department of Community Medicine, The Middlesex Hospital Medical School, Central Middlesex Hospital, London NW10 7NS.

In Britain each child's immunization record may be found in two places. One is the file, which may be a manual or computer file, kept by the local health authority and the other is the patient record kept by the patient's general practitioner. Ideally these two records should be identical. However, on comparing the immunization records from health authorities and general practitioners for 690 children in the National Childhood Encephalopathy Study it was found that the records differed with disturbing frequency.

Further inquiries to the health authorities and general practitioners concerning those children's records in which there were disagreements about the types of vaccines and the dates on which they were given left many discrepancies unresolved.