SCHOOLS and nurseries should refuse to admit children who have not had the MMR vaccine, according to East Lancashire's director of public health.

Dr Sohail Bhatti said he was discussing 'radical' ways to protect more children against measles, mumps and rubella.

He said: “There is a responsibility on parents to ensure children are immunised. It's not just simply down to us."

But the Lancashire Telegraph's health expert Dr Tom Smith said banning children from school who had not been vaccinated was a 'totalitarian' measure.

Dr Bhatti made the call after NHS East Lancashire, which covers Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, Ribble Valley and Rossendale, was told it needed to make ‘special efforts’ to enhance vaccination rates.

Figures for 2008/09 revealed that the primary care trust had below average uptake for children immunised by their second birthday and fifth birthday.

It means around 6,640 children were not protected from the diseases over a five-year period.

Dr Bhatti said he was negotiating a change in school admission policies with Lancashire County Council, in line with rules already enforced in the United States and France.

But county council bosses distanced themselves from the idea, saying it would require a change in the law.

Dr Bhatti said: “If you like it's a radical idea, but I feel an appropriate suggestion for East Lancashire is that we change nurseries and schools admission policies so parents realise they have a due diligence responsibility for not infecting their children and their friends' children.

“It's what happens in France. There, you can't be admitted to school unless you show your vaccination certificate.

“That's what we call big society. You have a responsibility to be a good citizen and part of that is not spreading potentially fatal diseases to other children.”

Helen Denton, Lancashire County Council's executive director for children and young people, said such a policy would not be possible without a change in the law.

She said: “Dr Bhatti is right to be concerned about the uptake of vaccinations and we are working in partnership with NHS East Lancashire to encourage parents to get their children immunised focusing on education and persuasion of parents.”

A National Support Team which visited NHS East Lancashire said that out of the 5,177 children born within Burnley, Hyndburn, Pendle, the Ribble Valley and Rossendale each year, only 82.6 per cent receive MMR by their second birthday.The national average is 84.9 per cent and 57.2 per cent for the North West.

MMR rates plummeted after Dr Andrew Wakefield 's 1998 Lancet study suggested a link between the vaccinations and autism.

This year he was struck off after the General Medical Council found him guilty of serious professional misconduct over the way he carried out the controversial research.

The scare did 'untold damage to the UK vaccination programme', according to the Department of Health which says MMR has been endorsed through numerous studies in many countries.

However in East Lancashire, rather than lingering concern over Dr Wakefield's claims, the low take-up rate is said to be down to complacency on the part of parents.

Dr Bhatti said the trust was also considering other measures.

He said: “We used to be in the bottom quarter so we have really improved, but being average is not good enough for us.

“We are negotiating to create a fail-safe service where health visitors will go out and knock on people's doors to ensure the children are vaccinated.

“I respect parent's choosing not to vaccinate their children, but they should inform their GP of that, so we don't spend a lot of time chasing them up.

“The other thing I'm calling on parents to do is to give mobile numbers to GPs so we could arrange to text them reminders.

“Over a third of our clinic slots are empty because parents don't turn up.

“It's not that we're not making efforts, it's that the efforts are not reaching people.”

Dr Tom Smith said he could see both sides of the argument.

He said: “It's punishing the kids for what the parents do and I don't like that.

"It smacks of totalitarianism, but I can see the reason for it.”

By this time last year there had been two confirmed cases of measles in East Lancashire. There have been none so far this year.

However, there were 44 cases of mumps, and so far this year there have been another 18.

There have been no confirmed cases of rubella in the past two years.

Blackburn with Darwen is among the highest areas in the country for the uptake of the first and second doses of the MMR vaccine by five years of age for 2008/09, with nearly 86 per cent of children protected.