005B COVID Autumn 2026 RECALL

The searches in this folder identify patients over the age of 6 months who will be eligible to receive a COVID vaccination in the current campaign period. It forms part of the 005 COVID Vaccination programme collection of search folders.

Following changes in 2025 the number of eligible patients is significantly less than the Autumn 2024 and earlier campaigns.

COVID boosters became part of the Seasonal Vaccinations specification from Spring 2026.

Eligibility in autumn 2026 is the same as in the spring 2025, autumn 2025 and spring 2026 campaigns.

Searches

These searches should be used as the basis of a recall. They are built to only include eligible patients in the cohort, but exclude anybody who has been vaccinated since the start of the current campaign.

Practices may notice a significant difference to the search results depending on the date they run the search. This is due to how the recall searches handle invitations. Patients are excluded if they have had 2 separate invitations in during the campaign, or an invitation was sent in the last 6 weeks.

Please read the section "Immunosuppression" below before issuing any invitations to patients in the 6m-74y immunosuppressed search

Recall of immunocompromised patients

The searches for immunocompromised patients includes any aged 6 months to 74 years who are coded with a diagnosis from the relevant immunocompromised at risk SNOMED reference set. A limitation of reference sets used is that some codes do not qualify for a vaccination. The cohort has been separated into those who could be invited straight away (search CVP-B25), and those who should be checked by a clinician (search CVP-B26) prior to invitation.

It is intended that practices work down these searches, running from CVP-B21 through to CVP-B28.

Patients living in care homes are only found in the corresponding recall search (CVP-B21) to minimise the chance of inappropriate invitations. Practices who do not look after care homes should still check this search as any included patients will not receive an invitation. If appropriate, consider adding a code to record that the patient no longer lives in a care home.
Patients who are housebound are only found in the corresponding recall search (CVP-B28), giving an opportunity to send a tailored invitation which may put them on a list for a home visit or district nurse visit.

CVP-B21) REVIEW Care Home patients for COVID vaccination

This search includes all patients who are coded as living in a care home using the codes in the PCN DES. It may be useful to review the cohort in the 005A COHORTS folder if the practice would like to add patients living at specific addresses who may not have an appropriate code.

It is important to note that ONLY patients living in Care Homes registered for Older Adults are eligible for COVID vaccination. The search results may need to be exported to Excel to remove patients in homes that are not registered for Older Adults before arranging vaccinations. It is always recommended to contact the Care Home to get a current list of residents rather than relying on SystmOne coding to avoid missing eligible patients.

The support article for 005A COVID Autumn 2026 COHORTS has more information on the Care Homes cohort and how to check if a specific home is eligible.

A Report Output for this search is available - "Care Home Patients including RSV/COVID history" - which includes the patient's RSV vaccination status. This is to support practices choosing to co-administer the COVID and RSV vaccines following the expansion of the RSV vaccination programme to include patients living in a care home from 1st April 2026.

Any patients who appear on this list but are not currently resident in a care home can be removed by coding 'lives in own home'. This will then ensure they move into the appropriate recall list below.

CVP-B22) INVITE Over 75s for COVID invitation

This search includes patients who are eligible for the COVID vaccination due to age. The eligibility criteria for Autumn 2026 is patients aged 75 or who will be aged 75 years old on 31st January 2027. The search will therefore include some patients currently aged 74 who are eligible for vaccination even if they have not yet turned 75.

The search excludes patients living in care homes or currently coded as housebound. Practices may wish to review both the Care Homes and Housebound lists first to ensure any patients who appear on those lists in error get an appropriate invitation.

Note that CVP-B22 includes all patients eligible for COVID regardless of their RSV eligibility. Practices who wish to split this cohort into patients eligible for both COVID and RSV and those just eligible for COVID should use CVP-B23 and CVP-B24 - see below for details.

CVP-B23) INVITE Over 75s for combined RSV and COVID invitation

Following the expansion of the RSV vaccination scheme to include all patients aged 80 and over AND patients living in a care home for older adults, the recommendation is to consider co-administration so practices can either send the same invitation to all patients using CVP-B22 or they may wish to send different invitation messages to patients who are eligible for COVID and RSV, and those eligible for just COVID.

This search excludes patients who have already received the RSV vaccination or have been coded as declined or contraindicated.

CVP-B24) INVITE Over 75s for just COVID invitation

This search includes all patients in the over 75s cohort who are not eligible for RSV vaccination.

This search includes patients who have already received the RSV vaccination or have been coded as declined or contraindicated.

CVP-B25) INVITE 6m-74y Immunosuppressed for COVID invitation

This search includes patients who should always be eligible according to the Green Book, such as those with a history of a persisting condition and those currently undergoing immune suppressing treatment.

CVP-B26) REVIEW 6m-74y Immunosuppressed patients requiring REVIEW prior to invite

This search takes the remaining likely immunosuppressed patients who must be checked against Green Book criteria to determine whether they are eligible. A significant proportion are likely to be patients on non-biological immune modulating drugs such as methotrexate - the total daily/weekly dose must be checked against the Box 1 in the Green Book. Others may have conditions that should be clinically reviewed prior to invitation.

Given the potential size of this report, exporting to view in Excel may be a far more effective approach to sorting and reviewing the cohort.

Primary Care IT strongly recommends that this report is reviewed carefully prior to any invitations being issued.

Patients who have been confirmed as eligible from this search would need to be invited manually. Ensure that invitation coding is consistent with any action taken for patients in search CVP-B22.
We also recommend that the reviewing clinician adds a code of Patient immunocompromised (370388006) to the record to document eligibility. This helps system alerts flag the patient's eligibility, and to validates payment.

CVP-B28) Housebound patients for COVID invitation

This search includes any housebound patients over the age of 75 as well as patients who would have appeared in search CVP-B25 due to a persisting immune suppressed condition.

Housebound patients who might need a review are not included, and should be identified during the review of report CVP-B26.

Coding

It should be noted that the relevant searches built by PCIT contain all relevant codes to ensure that all patients are captured correctly in case the wrong code was used on a record.

COVID vaccination declined