By Anastasia Dzutstsati

Earlier this month NHS and the Office for National statistics released a number of kids registered with a doctor, showing that almost 5% of the population are not on a GP’s list. This puts about 120,000 kids in risk as they might miss life-saving health check-ups and vaccinations.

The NHS offers regular health checks for babies up till age of two to monitor their development. Parents also have an access to a personal child health record.

“The doorway to the health services is via the general practitioner. And that includes things like routine vaccinations and child health checks. If you do not have a GP for your child, you are missing out of that,” says Doctor Julian Spinks, the vice chairman of the Kent Local Medical Committee.

However quite a few parents do not think that NHS is effective enough so they avoid doctors. Wendy Jackson, a mother of five from Chatham, says that such behaviour is irresponsible. However she doesn’t think that NHS is doing a good job in taking care of children.

“I think that sometimes they take advantage of vulnerable situations. And because they are, obviously, under a lot of pressure, time constraints, the number of patients they have to see in a day, because of funding issues, if they see that a child is an easy-care case to just pass over – that’s what they do.

“I don’t think that enough investigations are done around children. There’s too many chiefs and not enough Indians in the National Health Service.”

Last year only 87% of children in England had received the recommended MMR jabs against measles, mumps and rubella. And according to the World Health Organisation at least 95% coverage is needed to avoid an outbreak.