Maternal uptake of the RSV vaccine rates are at just 53%. This is a good start to a new vaccine programme, especially given its rapid rollout, but a continued concerted effort is required to ensure protection is offered to mothers whose babies will born in the most exposure-prone months.

Why attend

• To listen and learn from vaccine experts
• To understand how important it is to encourage women to get vaccinated
• To spend some time reflecting on how  as midwives you are in a unique position as being a trusted source of information.

Speakers

Trish Dyter, Senior Midwife and Vaccination Clinic Lead, Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust

Having qualified as a nurse, & undertaken a six month Intensive Care course, I ventured into the world of Midwifery.  Having been qualified for nearly 50 years, it is a world I still love and feel proud to be a part of.  During those years I have held many interesting, & at times challenging posts, including night sister on Delivery suite; a Community Midwifery Team Leader; Named Midwife for Safeguarding & I also spent some time working on the FGM prevention programme @ NHS England. I was a Supervisor  of Midwives, and following its removal, I transitioned to become a PMA, which I still enjoy and spend a lot of time facilitating Birth Reviews.

I came in to the world of immunisation by default, but I have found it to be quite fascinating  and a vital part of midwifery. The growing & developing of the Trusts Maternity vaccinations clinics has brought much satisfaction, especially  the implementation of the RSV  vaccine into the Maternity Immunisation programme

Greta Hayward, Consultant Midwife, UKHSA Immunisation Programmes Division

I am a consultant midwife working in the immunisation programme division of UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA). I drive the public health agenda by leading collaboratively across organisations to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities. My varied career history includes working clinically as a midwife in both community and in-patient settings, lecturing to nursing and midwifery students in Borneo, and commissioning of screening and immunisation programmes in the East Midlands. I provide expert clinical input to the national public health programmes in UKHSA, aiming to balance the demands of both seasonal and all year-round immunisation programmes, against the challenges each model places on local services and frontline staff.

Thomas Williams, Senior Clinical Research Fellow, University of Edinburgh

I am a Senior Clinical Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Consultant in Paediatric Respiratory Medicine at the Royal Hospital for Children and Young People, Edinburgh. Since 2019 I have worked with the World Health Organisation on their RSV Global Surveillance Programme, and I am currently an honorary consultant for the United Kingdom Health Security Agency’s Respiratory Virus Unit. In 2021-2022 I led the BronchStart study , which provided detailed estimates of RSV disease burden to inform the decision to implement RSV maternal vaccination in the United Kingdom. This winter (2024-2025) I helped lead the BronchStop study, which aimed to understand the effectiveness of this newly introduced RSV maternal vaccine, and potential barriers to update.

MIDIRS Search Packs

• P159 Vaccination during pregnancy
• P201 Coronavirus (COVID-19) – vaccination in pregnancy
• PN131 Infant vaccination
• PN188 Infant vaccination in the United Kingdom
• PN189 Measles vaccination in infants
• PN190 Polio vaccine in infants

i-learn modules

• COVID19 vaccination in pregnancy (10 minutes)
• Flu vaccination in pregnant women (30 minutes)