ealth Department officials were accused of 'bully-boy' tactics over MMR yesterday after it emerged they are limiting the number of single vaccines reaching parents.

They have ordered a supplier of rubella vaccinations to slash the number it makes available to a clinic which has inoculated more than 30,000 children with single jabs.

The directive to Essexbased firm Farillon was given by two doctors from the Department of Health's immunology division.

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It was aimed at preventing the private London-based Direct Health 2000 clinic getting more than 100 jabs a month.

Critics of the Government's refusal to provide an alternative to MMR say the move is an attempt to force parents back to the triple injection.

Under Medicines Control Agency guidelines, any child who receives the single rubella vaccine should then be given single measles and mumps jabs.

This has proved a useful loophole to allow parents to get single jabs for their child. Direct Health 2000 has thousands of parents waiting for single vaccines. Spokesman Kathy Durnford found out that an order for 300 vaccines had been cut to 100.

She said: 'I contacted the supplier and was told the Department of Health had told them to cut the number of single vaccines given to us.

'This is real bully-boy, Big Brother stuff. 'They are trying to prevent parents concerned about the wellbeing of their children having a choice on this issue.'

Tory MP Julie Kirkbride, who is fighting for parental choice over single vaccines on the NHS, said: 'What they are doing may not be illegal, but it is certainly unethical.'

The Department of Health admitted limiting the amount of vaccines given to private clinics, on the grounds that the vaccines were part of a bulk NHS contract placed with Farillon.

The NHS uses the rubella jab on women of childbearing age who do not have resistance to the disease - which can cause abnormalities in unborn children.

A Department of Health spokesman said: 'We can restrict it because it's our stock. Demand has increased substantially and we were concerned that there should be enough left for the needs of the NHS.'