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Single jabs clinic shut down by red tape A service set up by parents to provide single vaccines for children as an alternative to the controversial MMR jab has been ordered to shut down because it is not legally registered - after months of delay by a government agency responsible for processing its application forms. The National Care Standards Commission, which was established a year ago to inspect independent hospitals and care homes, told Desumo Information and Health Care, which operates a fortnightly clinic in Worcester, that it must stop vaccinating children until its registration is guaranteed. The action means that 230 children due to attend a clinic on Saturday will not now be vaccinated. They have already had a rubella immunisation but will remain unprotected against measles and, in some cases, mumps unless their parents can find an alternative supplier or agree to let their children have the MMR jab, which combines all three in one. A further 5,000 families with children due to complete their course of three vaccinations at later clinics also face an uncertain future. Three hundred doses of the single mumps vaccine, which is in acutely short supply, may also have to be thrown away. Debbie Ryding, a founder of Desumo, said that the closure of the clinic was "an attack on the right of parents to chose single vaccinations as opposed to MMR". She blamed the commission, which has taken months to process her company's application, for the shutdown. "I am worried that parents will be unnecessarily alarmed. This has nothing to do with the way that our clinics are run or the vaccines we use, which are all approved by the Medicines Control Agency. "The commission sent us a fax on Tuesday saying that we should stop vaccinating children because we are not registered with them. But that is not our fault. We submitted our application for registration last September and they didn't even bother to contact us until mid-January of this year." The Care Standards Act 2000 required that all private medical clinics be registered with the NCSC by last year. The commission sent application forms to 10,000 organisations last February and has been processing the backlog since. Mrs Ryding says, however, that Desumo did not receive any papers. She and her husband, Stephen, the company's managing director, made their own inquiries last spring only to find that commission staff were unable to tell her how or where to apply. Finally they obtained the form themselves, filled it in and and sent it to the NCSC's Worcester office. "I am so angry and upset about this," Mrs Ryding added. "Desumo was founded by parents to help parents - we became a company only for insurance reasons - and now bureaucracy is denying parents a choice. My own two boys, Michael, four, and Max, two, have not yet completed their course of single vaccines and there is absolutely no way that we will allow them to have the MMR vaccine. "The NCSC inspector didn't even inspect our clinic, which I would have thought would be the most important thing to do," she added. Ten thousand children have been vaccinated during sessions run by Desumo, with parents paying £188 for a course of three separate rubella, measles and mumps inoculations. The organisation was established two years ago and has already survived one challenge to its existence: in August 2001 a public health specialist reported to the General Medical Council a general practitioner who was working with Desumo. He claimed that Dr Peter Mansfield was wrong to prescribe the single vaccines as these were not approved by the National Health Service but the doctor was subsequently exonerated. Now Len Cunningham, the inspector for the NCSC in the South-West, has told Desumo that it could face legal action if it continues to host clinics and that doing so could have "serious implications" for the company's "fitness" to be registered. The number of parents seeking individual rubella, measles and mumps vaccinations privately for their children has risen sharply in the past year, fuelled by claims that MMR may be linked with autism and bowel disease. The NHS barred single measles and mumps vaccines in 1999, yet imports of single measles vaccine rose sixfold from 11,818 in 2001 to 71,859 doses last year; mumps requests leapt from 17,800 to 39,089. A spokesman for the NCSC was unable to explain why Desumo had been asked to close down while other private health care organisations with applications still being processed had been allowed to continue their activities. Desumo is the second organisation providing single jabs to be told to stop in the past 10 days. Lifeline Care Ltd was shut down by the NCSC on February 21 because it is not registered. The move followed allegations from health officials that vaccines given to more than 1,000 children at clinics in Elstree in Hertfordshire and Sheffield had been mixed incorrectly, raising the possibility that the jabs were ineffective or even contaminated. Dr David Pugh, the company's medical director, denies the allegations. Jackie Fletcher, of the parents' pressure group Jabs, which campaigns in support of single vaccinations, said that the NCSC's actions were not helping families who wanted desperately to get their children vaccinated.
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