Girls "paid" for cervical jabs

NHS bosses in Birmingham have been telling Heart why they have decided to pay some teenage girls to have the cervical cancer vaccine.

16 to 18 year olds in North and East Birmingham are being offered £75 in high street shopping vouchers if the have all three HPV jabs.

The pilot project targeting 500 teenagers is being run by the area's NHS trust to try and encourage more girls to have the potentially life saving jabs.

The incentives scheme has only been running for a couple of weeks but it is hoped that by offering the shopping vouchers more.

Director of health improvement in the area Nicola Bench explained that there was a low take up in the area of girls in their late teens that were too old to be given the jab at school and whose parents have less influence over their choices. 

She says "It's a really important vaccination and we know it protects girls from cervical cancer which kills people... It's a small amount of money in the scheme of things but actually a reasonable amount of money to encourage the girls to come forward."