Report 29

Improving Immunisation Rates of Children in WA

Audit focus and scope

The audit objective was to determine if WA Health has an effective approach to immunising children and adolescents.

We based our audit on:

  • does WA Health deliver its immunisation services effectively?

The audit focused on areas of low immunisation and immunisation rates below the national average (even though reaching the 90% target). In particular:

  • Aboriginal infants (Aboriginal children aged 12 months)
  • all toddlers (2 year old children)
  • adolescents (children in high school)
  • new migrants
  • other at risk categories.

In undertaking this audit we:

  • assessed implementation of the Western Australia Immunisation Strategy 2013-2015 and 2016-2020 to see what progress had been made in improving areas of low immunisation
  • focused our activities on the Public Health division of the Department of Health. We also audited WA Country Health Service (WACHS) and Child and Adolescent Community Health (CACH) within Child and Adolescent Health Service (CAHS)
  • reviewed policies, guidelines, strategies, internal and external reporting on immunisation, meeting minutes from the WA Immunisation Strategy Implementation Steering Committee and other documents
  • analysed AIR reports and Health’s school-based immunisation database from 2013 to 2016
  • interviewed Public Health staff and metropolitan service providers from CAHS and regional service providers from WACHS
  • spoke to a representative from the Royal College of General Practitioners (RACGP) to inform our understanding of the role of GPs in providing child and adolescent immunisations
  • completed an application review of Health’s school-based immunisation database to test its integrity and completeness.

We contacted the Commonwealth Department of Human Services (DHS) to request access to information captured in AIR to assist with our audit and the development of our audit findings.

We conducted this narrow scope performance audit under section 18 of the Auditor General Act 2006 and in accordance with Australian Auditing and Assurance Standards. Narrow scope performance audits have a tight focus and generally target agency compliance with legislation, public sector policies and accepted good governance. The approximate cost of tabling this report is $240,000.

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