Parents are being urged to use Saturday morning drop-in clinics to ensure their children are immunised against childhood diseases.

To boost local immunisation rates, the borough's health authority, NHS Wandsworth, has launched two drop-in clinics where children can go to have jabs, including pre-school boosters, school leaver’s boosters and the MMR.

Clinics are open between 10am and midday on the first Saturday of every month at Roehampton SureStart at 166 Roehampton Lane.

The Tooting Bec Medical Centre, 103 Macmillan Way, is open every Saturday morning between 9am and 12 noon, on Tuesdays between 3pm and 7pm and every Wednesday from 3pm to 7pm.

Nurse Betty Attipoe, NHS Wandsworth’s lead immunisation nurse, said: “It is so important that parents protect their children and others by making sure they are up to date with their jabs.

“Immunisation is a way of protecting your child against serious diseases. Once children have been immunised their bodies can fight those diseases if they were to come into contact with them. If a child is not immunised they will be at risk from catching the disease.

“We need parents to check whether their child is up to date with their jabs and if they are not, they will need to get in touch with their doctor or come along to one of our drop-in clinics. Parents are advised to bring along their child’s red book.”

For more information call the Immunisation Helpline on 020 8254 8393.