005B COVID booster recall
The COVID booster recall has become a seasonal event, with different eligibility criteria for Spring and Autumn campaigns. These reports identify patients over the age of 6 months who would be eligible to receive a COVID (booster) vaccination. It forms part of the 005 COVID vaccination programme report category.
Reports
The COVID booster recall folder is broken down into 4 categories. Cohorts, Recall for COVID boosters, Vaccinated in last 3 months and Data Admin.
The folder identifying recent vaccinations follows the Green Book recommendations of at least a 3 month interval from the previous dose. We are aware of some materials suggesting a 6 month interval between doses, however setting a rigid 6 month restriction may prevent patients eligible in both Autumn and Spring campaigns from being called on time.
A | Cohorts
As of Autumn 2025, the autumn campaign appears to now mirror the Spring COVID campaign in terms of age and condition eligibility (ie: all over 75s, and 6m-64y clinically at risk). This represents a change from previous Autumn campaigns which were
These reports are for information and understanding only - do NOT use for recall
Autumn Campaign
There are 3 cohorts but it is possible for a patient to appear in both the over 75s cohort AND immunosuppressed. Care home patients will only ever appear in the care home cohort.
Patients living in an older adult care home takes all patients over the age of 16 who are recorded as living in a care home according to the PCN DES care homes coding specification.
Older patients (75 or over) identifies all patients who have had their 75th birthday except those living in a care home.
Over 6m who are immunosuppressed identifies all patients over the age of 6 months who have a code on their record suggesting they are immunosuppressed according to the Green Book. This does not count any codes which have been added to mark the patient as moderate or high risk to a COVID infection.
The NHS letter about the seasonal vaccination programmes specified patients living in older adult care homes. It is not possible to build a search that identifies exactly this characteristic since there is no set age for patients to live in an older adult care home. Younger patients living in a qualifying setting would still be eligible, and some Practices may take the view that all care home residents are a vulnerable group who should be vaccinated in any case. It is envisaged that the recall search for care homes would be taken by a Practice for direct management (ie: arranging a site visit without needing to invite patients).
At risk conditions
The Green Book maintains separate tables of at-risk conditions for adults (Table 3) and children (Table 4). Best efforts have been made to align searches to the table, although there is a likelihood that some historic coding may pull a patients into the search when a clinician would say they are not eligible.
Immunosuppression
The image below is taken from Table 3 of the Green Book, Chapter 14a.
Patients with conditions that may "require long term immunosuppressive treatment" such as Rheumatoid arthritis and SLE are only included based on the medication being issued to them. There are further qualifying criteria based on how much of the medication they are being prescribed so they should be checked carefully before invitation. Some of these patients may be managed under secondary care and have hospital issued medication which it not recorded on SystmOne (ie: these patients would be eligible), but others may be on the disease register but do not currently take immunosuppressive medication to manage the condition (these patients probably are not eligible).
There are no codes to exclude a patient from the cohort search.
B | Recall
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 (see next section).
Please read the section "Immunosuppression" above before issuing any invitations to patients in the 'at risk' search.
Autumn recall of immunocompromised patients
The Spring booster campaign includes patients aged 6 months to 74 years who are immunocompromised. A limitation of reference sets (code clusters) used is that some codes do not qualify for a vaccination, although effort has been put into eliminating as many of these as possible.
To help manage the immunocompromised cohort, two separate reports have been built which separate into those who could be invited straightaway (search c), and those who should be checked by a clinician (search d) prior to invitation.
- Patients living in care homes are only found in the corresponding recall search (a) 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 recall search (e), giving an opportunity to send a tailored invitation which may put them on a list for a home visit or district nurse visit.
Patients in report (c) have a condition or biologic medication which should automatically qualify them for a booster vaccination.
The remaining patients in report (d) may have certain conditions to be verified, or more likely they are on non-biologic immune modulating medication such as methotrexate or azathioprine. These patients should be carefully reviewed to calculate the daily dose based on the drug strength and the dose instructions. Minimum dose thresholds can be found in Box 1 and Box 2 from the Green Book.
Practices may be able to join the (d) review report with other reports that help to breakdown medication information. Reports for On methotrexate, On azathioprine, On mercaptopurine, On mycophenolate can be found in the z Subs Reports sub category folder.
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 c.
It is intended that practices work down these searches.
Primary Care IT strongly recommends that this search is reviewed carefully prior to any invitations being issued. It may be possible to run breakdowns on these populations, otherwise a clinical review of patient records to compare against the Green Book criteria would be necessary.
C | Vaccinated in last 3 months
Patients who have a record of a coded vaccination in the last 3 months are separated by cohort. The final report may be regarded as a catch-all, but it will also capture any patients falling outside of the 3 cohorts who have received a vaccination. This may be a first, second, or successive booster dose as all vaccination codes are being picked up.
The reports look at a rolling 3 months so they are only ever likely to be accurate for the day they are run. Remember using a relative run date in the future will effectively shorten the duration from the present.
D | Data Admin
COVID vaccination declined in last 6 months Lists all those who have declined recently, to allow them to be removed from any report. Practices may wish to extend the declined period to 12 months or even longer if they do not want to include dissenting patients on their recall lists. If the search folder is updated by PCIT, these changes will be removed.
COVID vaccination invitation in last 3 months Counts all patients who have been invited, as long as an invitation code has been added to the record. If no invitation code has been used, the recall reports will only reduce if/when a vaccination is recorded.
COVID at risk groups takes the clinical risk groups listed on Table 3 (adults) and Table 4 (under 16s) of Green Book Chapter 14a. Many Practices will find that the results broadly correspond to the flu at-risk groups, although some additional patients are likely to be picked up. The search contains QOF code clusters, COVID19 specific code clusters, and other clusters which reflect the conditions described in Tables 3 or 4. The 6m-64 cohort is age appropriate according to the table.
Most of the conditions listed in Table 3 but not in Table 4 are very unlikely to be found in children, and there are also some additional conditions in Table 4 not specified in Table 3.
Patients contraindicated for COVID vaccine identifies patients who have been coded with specific terms released since COVID-19. Any of these would have been done following a clinical review, so the numbers are expected to be very small. Periodically check these patients in case the contraindication was recorded early on in the pandemic in anticipation of a particular type of vaccine.
Coding
It should be noted that the relevant searches built by PCIT contain all codes and not just those which are specified to ensure that all patients are captured correctly in case the wrong code was used on a record.
COVID vaccination declined
| SNOMED Term | Concept ID |
| SARS-CoV-2 vaccination declined | 1156270003 (and all children) |
| SARS-CoV-2 immunisation course declined | 1324811000000107 |
| SARS-CoV-2 protection maintenance course declined | 1362651000000105 |
COVID vaccination invitation
| SNOMED Term | Concept ID |
| SARS-CoV-2 vaccination invitation letter | 1402921000000102 (and all children) |
| SARS-CoV-2 vaccination telephone invitation | 1402931000000100 (and all children) |
| SARS-CoV-2 vaccination invitation email | 1403101000000104 (and all children) |
SARS-CoV-2 vaccination invitation SMS | 1403031000000106 (and all children) |
COVID vaccination
| SNOMED Term | Concept ID |
| Administration of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine | 1156257007 (and all children) |
SARS-CoV-2 protection maintenance course started | 1362681000000104 |
SARS-CoV-2 protection maintenance course started | 1362691000000102 |
Immunisation course to maintain protection against SARS-CoV-2 | 1362591000000103 |
Combining with flu
Some Practices may wish to combine eligible patients for both flu and COVID vaccinations. As has been stated, the vast majority of patients eligible for COVID will already be eligible for flu. There is a key difference between Primary Care IT's at-risk cohort for COVID and the at-risk cohort for seasonal influenza; seasonal influenza uses the exact business rules for the Enhanced Service meaning every code will count, while COVID is an interpretation of a table of text. Every effort has been made to utilise the same code groups were possible, and elsewhere we have worked to find the most appropriate code clusters for the conditions listed in the Green Book.
If you wish to combine the two groups into a single search, we suggest building a Joint Report like the below screenshot. Patients aged 6m-17y will not be included.
To find patients who only appear in the COVID searches, change the join type to ignore report 1 (assuming that is flu recall)
Think about other elements you can bring into a search to avoid inviting patients who are already booked in by excluding future appointments using a certain slot type.
References
Green Book Chapter 14a (18 April 2024 version), (19 March 2025 version)
Support Information
Development Log
24/03/2025 - Released Spring booster update including improved immunocompromised patient identification
09/10/2024 - Updated at risk cohort with additional conditions.
Communications Log
π Announcing the COVID Vaccine Autumn Campaign Searches! ππ
Exciting news for healthcare providers! Our searches are designed to streamline the COVID vaccine booster campaign and enhance patient care. π©Ίπͺ
Key Features:
π Easy Patient Identification: Quickly locate eligible patients for the autumn booster campaign
π Vaccine Coverage Tracking: Monitor vaccine coverage rates within your patient population
π Data Quality Checks: Identify and rectify data errors effortlessly
The COVID Vaccine Autumn Campaign Searches simplify the vaccination process, ensuring eligible patients receive timely reminders and care. It's available now and integrated seamlessly into EMIS Web and SystmOne. π₯π
Join us in making the COVID vaccine campaign efficient and effective. Let's ensure that every eligible patient receives the protection they need! ππ
#COVIDVaccine #BoosterCampaign #HealthcareProviders #DataAccuracy #PatientCare #IntegratedTools
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