The East Riding Health Protection team are part of the wider Public Health team and have priorities which align with those of the national UK Health Security Agency, these are:
- Be ready to respond to all hazards to health, including pandemics
- Improve health outcomes through vaccines and reduce vaccination inequalities
- Reduce the impact of infectious diseases and antimicrobial resistance
- Protect health from threats in the environment
- Improve action on health security through data and insight
- Continue to develop the health protection team as a high performing service to collaborate closely with UKHSA and whole system partners.
Latest East Riding Health Protection Annual Report (2025/26)
The Health Protection team’s annual report for 2025/26 can be viewed and downloaded below. Key components of the report include:
Infectious Disease Surveillance and Response
- Surveillance systems across schools, early years settings, and adult social care continue to function effectively, providing timely intelligence and enabling proportionate responses. Infection trends during 2025/26 broadly mirrored national patterns, with clear seasonal peaks in gastrointestinal and respiratory infections during autumn and winter, particularly following school return periods. Diarrhoea and vomiting remained the most frequently reported infections in both schools and adult social care, while overall numbers of confirmed high‑risk infections were low.
- In Adult Social Care, outbreak management continues to improve, with shorter outbreak durations compared with the previous year, providing assurance on infection prevention and control practices. An increase in scabies cases was observed, reflecting wider national trends rather than local system failure. All notifiable disease cases were appropriately followed up and resolved.
Vaccination, Immunisation, and Screening
- East Riding of Yorkshire continues to perform strongly on vaccination uptake overall, exceeding regional and national averages for many childhood programmes. MMR uptake at age five remains high, with first‑dose coverage exceeding the 95% herd immunity threshold. However, areas of concern remain, including a decline in HPV uptake for both girls and boys, persistent inequalities by deprivation, and lower flu vaccination uptake among some cohorts, particularly under‑65 at‑risk adults, pregnant women, and school‑aged children in Bridlington.
- Screening performance is generally positive, with most indicators above the England average. Two programmes require improvement: newborn and infant physical examination screening and chlamydia screening in females aged 15–24, both of which are below national benchmarks.
Place‑Based Focus and Inequalities
- Bridlington remains a key place‑based priority due to higher levels of deprivation and poorer health outcomes. Targeted work through neighbourhood partnerships is underway to improve vaccination uptake and reduce health inequalities, particularly for children and young people.
Learning, Assurance, and Emergency Preparedness
- A small number of near‑miss incidents, including suspected measles cases, highlighted variable awareness of escalation pathways, particularly outside normal working hours. These incidents have informed system learning, strengthened guidance, and reinforced the leadership role of Health Protection. The team is embedding the UKHSA Health Protection Assurance Framework to systematically identify strengths, gaps, and measurable system impact.
- As a Category 1 responder, the Council continues to play a central role in emergency planning and multi‑agency incident response, informed by the Humber Community Risk Register.