016 Seasonal Influenza searches
The latest version is 016 Seasonal Influenza 2025-26 (v6.2)
This collection of searches has been designed to support Practices running a call/recall programme for their seasonal influenza campaign. Built in line with the Enhanced Service criteria, searches are grouped by eligibility cohorts to assist in prioritising groups of patients to invite, and then to monitor uptake across each of the cohorts. A data quality folder offers searches to highlight missed or incorrect coding to ensure that all activity will be funded following the monthly CQRS extracts.
This year there are 7 folders of searches available to use.
Within the top level folder is an aggregate report Flu planning - previous uptake which will show how many patients had a flu jab in previous years. Bear in mind that not all of these jabs would have been done by the surgery, but it should offer an indication of roughly how many patients typically might want a flu jab in each of the 3 age groups (over 65 / 18-64 / under 18).
Seasonal Flu Report is an aggregate report which may be of use to Practices who want a summary of the figures the Cohort (A), Uptake (C), and Declined (X) folders. The data can be extracted to Excel if desired for greater manipulation.
The searches have been released in July 2025. At the time of writing all recall searches are final, but trivalent vaccinations given during the flu season are not currently counted. It is expected these will be automatically updated by EMIS shortly. Any impact is likely to be found when sending out second invitations.
A) Cohorts
The cohorts folder underpins the recall, uptake, and activity folders. The cohorts have been written to reflect the groups specified in the national guidance document.
- All patients at risk - every patient found in one of the at risk cohorts.
- Care Home patients - anybody coded as living in a care home (based on PCN DES EHCH01 logic). These patients are excluded from all other cohorts (eg: Over 65) as Practices are likely apply a different approach to managing them, perhaps by a scheduled visit to the care home.
- Housebound patients - similar to care homes, any patient not living in a care home who has a code indicating that they are currently housebound. These patients are excluded from all other cohorts.
- Over 65 - all patients born before 01/04/1961. Some patients will be aged 64 when they receive the vaccine, but they will have turned 65 by 31st March 2026.
- AT RISK 18-64 - patients born on or after 01/04/1961 and aged over 18. These patients have a clinical at risk condition making them eligible to receive a vaccine (or they are currently pregnant). Inclusion in this cohort is dependent on coding defined by the Seasonal Influenza Enhanced Service. This means anybody invited and/or vaccinated using searches based on this search will be counted (assuming correct vaccination coding) in the monthly CQRS claims.
- Under 18 - this search encapsulates all patients from the 5 cohorts below.
- AT RISK under 18 - patients under 18 (but older than 6 months) who have a clinical at risk condition and do not appear in any of the other cohorts below.
- Children 2-3 - all children born between 01/09/2020 and 31/08/2022. These children fall under the scope of the Childhood seasonal influenza seasonal influenza vaccination programme enhanced service. They are eligible for a nasal flu spray administered by the surgery.
- AT RISK primary school age - all children in Reception to Year 6 inclusive (ie: those children born between 01/09/2014 and 31/08/2021) who have a clinical at risk condition. These patients are not a priority for primary care to vaccinate - this is the responsibility of the schools teams - but if they miss vaccination at school it is possible for the surgery to vaccinate. Staff may choose to refer to this cohort to confirm whether an individual child is eligible.
- AT RISK secondary school age - children in Y7-Y11 who have a clinical at risk condition. These children are primarily the responsibility of the schools programme for all secondary school children this season, meaning GP Practices may only want or need to follow up where an at risk patient has not received a vaccination.
- HEALTHY school age - children in Reception to Y11 inclusive who do not have a clinical at risk condition. This cohort is shown for reference in case patients attempt to obtain a flu vaccination at the surgery. Primary Care has no remit to vaccinate any patient in this cohort.
- Patients NOT at risk - any adult patient between the ages of 18 and 64 who do not have a clinical at risk condition.
The cohort searches should NOT be used for any exercise in inviting patients for vaccination.
The cohort for healthy patients aged 50-64 was removed for 24/25 as the annual NHS letter does not reference this group and this is the same for 25/26
B) RECALL
The searches in this folder follow a similar structure to those in the cohorts folder. The recall searches do not include any patient who has a declined/contraindicated code since 1st September, or a vaccination; it is therefore essential to ensure that all events are coded accurately and as soon as possible.
Never base invitations on SIV-B00 or SIV-B40.
- Patients living in care homes are only found in SIV-B02 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 SIV-B03, giving an opportunity to send a tailored invitation which may put them on a list for a home visit or district nurse visit.
For 25/26 season, there is a staggered start to the vaccination campaign, with some groups eligible from September before the remainder are eligible from October. Searches such as SIV-B21 AT RISK Pregnant patients should assist in identifying patients for earlier recall.
Practices should be cautious about searches for under 18s since these are largely expected to be completed by the schools teams.
Pregnant patients - in v6.1 patients who are coded as currently pregnant have been REMOVED from SIV-B20. These patients are all included in SIV-B21 and this avoids patients receiving invites with different start dates. SIV-B21 is designed to exclude patients who are then coded with a pregnancy outcome such as delivery codes, termination or miscarriage.
If a patient is pregnant AND also has another clinical risk factor such as diabetes they will appear on SIV-B21 while they are pregnant and will then move back to SIV-B20 if the pregnancy ends before they have been vaccinated. This is designed to reduce the risk of patients missing out on a recall due to a change of eligibility criteria.
Practices may wish to re-run the searches during their main vaccination drive and review patients appearing in SIV-B43 and SIV-B44. These school age cohorts are the responsibility of the schools teams, but Practices can still vaccinate and claim for patients at risk who for whatever reason have not been able to have a dose under the schools programme.
In addition to the searches based directly on the cohorts, SIV-B11 is a subset of over 65 patients who also have a clinical at risk condition. If Practices wish to target a second invitation later in the flu season to 'mop up' missed patients, this search in particular may help to prioritise those patients with higher clinical risk including those patients who would have previously appeared in QOF flu indicators (CHD / COPD / Diabetes / Stroke).
Some Practices may wish to customise searches in this folder to avoid inviting patients who are already booked in for a vaccination. See below for guidance.
C) UPTAKE
These searches display every patient who has received a flu vaccination anywhere. In addition to your own vaccination activity it includes vaccinations done by pharmacies, hospitals, midwives, and schools. This folder only works if all reports of vaccinations are filed or coded accurately in a timely fashion. This folder more than ACTIVITY (the next folder) influences which patients are shown in the RECALL folder.
Accurately coding vaccinations done elsewhere is important to ensure the enhanced service extraction doesn't unintentionally pick up activity for payment which your Practice did not do.
D) ACTIVITY
The ACTIVITY folder displays the vaccinations which have been done by your organisation. There are only 4 valid codes for use (Administration of first inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination; Administration of second inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination; Administration of first intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination; Administration of second intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination). These are the only codes recognised by the two enhanced services for payment of activity.
The report SIV-D00 can be used to review all vaccinations given. For such a review it would be best to export the results and view in Excel. The report contains columns for the vaccinating staff member, as well as batch number and expiry date. Filtering by staff member may help to identify codes added by (admin) staff who would not normally be found to add vaccinations with their login. In the event of a product recall, the batch number will quickly help to identify affected patients.
All cohorts are shown, and consider that SIV-D45 (healthy school age) and SIV-D99 (adults not at risk) should be close to zero. For SIV-D99 in particular keep a regular eye on the search to monitor new patients added to the search, possibly weekly at the height of the vaccination campaign; it may be appropriate to add the code 'Needs influenza vaccination' to some patients after a clinical review, while the remaining patients may serve as a learning exercise for staff to understand how to avoid ineligible patients being vaccinated.
Q) DATA QUALITY
Staff running the Practice's vaccination programme should pay regular attention to this folder. Some of the searches found in the Data Quality folder will highlight activity which may need to be reviewed or corrected before the beginning of the month, to support the CQRS extracts.
SIV-A21: This search drives all of the at risk inclusion or exclusion used in the cohort folder. It is based entirely on the CQRS business rules for seasonal influenza, and should not be edited. It is possible to use the Check Patient feature against patients found in Population Included to understand why they might be eligible. See also SIV-A22.
SIV-A22: The criteria defined in SIV-A21 may not be as broad as many Practices are used to allowing, so there may be patients from this cohort who present and say they have received a flu vaccination in previous years. The Check Patient feature may help to understand why the patient may be eligible to receive a vaccination. Clinical staff can add a code of "Needs influenza vaccination" on an annual basis, either using PCIT's flu protocol or retrospectively by looking at patients in SIV-D99.
Many patients are likely to be included in other clusters, or more narrowly defined clusters in SIV-A21. The list of conditions in SIV-A22 are:
Epilepsy; COPD; rare genetic/metabolic/autoimmune conditions defined for COVID-19 risk; CHD; dementia; respiratory conditions defined for COVID-19 risk; MS; MND; AF; PAD; RA; asplenia; Addison's disease; cerebral palsy; history of venous thromboembolism; systemic lupus; thalassaemia/sickle cell anaemia/spherocytosis; polio; adrenal insufficiency.
Practices may find that patients identified by the searches are not eligible by the Green Book; the searches are written against the business rules so it identifies codes in the records rather than the patient's individual needs.
PCIT are aware that patients who have been pregnant in the past 9 months will appear even if they have delivered, miscarried, or had a termination. This is exactly how the business rules work, as identifying patients who have not delivered/miscarried/terminated a pregnancy is very difficult both in terms of the codes required and the timeframe in which they might be added; currently there is a wide variation in how this data is recorded in electronic medical records.
PCIT are aware that patients who have been pregnant in the past 9 months will appear even if they have delivered, miscarried, or had a termination. This is exactly how the business rules work, as identifying patients who have not delivered/miscarried/terminated a pregnancy is very difficult both in terms of the codes required and the timeframe in which they might be added; currently there is a wide variation in how this data is recorded in electronic medical records.
Patients with cancer are not automatically eligible for a flu jab based on the Green Book and CQRS business rules. Patients with a history of a blood cancer will always be eligible, but patients being managed for other types of cancer will only be eligible if they have had specific codes added (or drugs issued) in the last 12 months:
- Chemotherapy
- Radiotherapy (if it has an immunosuppressing effect)
- Biologic/biosimilar therapy
The absence of such coding will mean patients are not picked up by the invitation reports, and if they are vaccinated the activity may not be recognised for payment unless another code such as 'Needs influenza immunisation' is added around the time of the vaccination.
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SIV-Q00: Three searches identify patients who have been vaccinated by the surgery using one of the 4 primary vaccination codes. This search has been improved for 25/26 by ignoring patients who had a vaccination at a previous surgery before registering with the current surgery. The search and its children, which subdivide activity into injection and nasal spray, may be used as a rough guide as to how many vaccinations of each type have been administered.
If vaccine manufacturer information has been correctly recorded against the codes (possible when using a protocol), data the report SIV-D00 can be manipulated in Excel to establish a breakdown of each type of vaccine.
If vaccine manufacturer information has been correctly recorded against the codes (possible when using a protocol), data the report SIV-D00 can be manipulated in Excel to establish a breakdown of each type of vaccine.
Patients who have deregistered during the flu vaccination season are NOT included in these searches.
SIV-Q01: Counts the patients who were not originally eligible, but has been flagged following clinical review as being eligible to receive a vaccination. This code is essential on non-eligible patients (by the definition of the business rules) to ensure payment. Consider clinical review and coding "Long term indication for seasonal influenza vaccination" to save having to add a code every year.
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SIV-Q04: Identifies patients who have had an invalid flu vaccination code added this season, and the activity would not be counted in CQRS. Patients who also have a valid vaccination code are not included. Ideally this search should return 0 patients, but in the event of a number look at the report to check the code used as well as which staff member added it. If staff administering the vaccines adhere to using a protocol for coding, this search should remain empty!
SIV-Q05: Coding vaccinations as problems clogs up the problem page with unnecessary information. If the Practice is also using a protocol to code vaccinations it would highlight where it is not being used. Any patients listed can be a learning exercise for staff to know how to manage coding.
SIV-Q06: Another data quality search to root out coding issues. This can be used in two ways; one to pick up where staff double code during the same encounter, and when using the report it is also possible to pick out codes added on separate dates, perhaps as a result of other healthcare providers sending data twice.
SIV-Q07: Patients who have a medication issue for a flu jab but the episode is not coded are still counted for a CQRS claim, but nothing will appear on the patient's vaccination summary. If a patient were to request a vaccination history, a complete summary would need to show every jab which means the event must be coded.
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SIV-Q10: Immunocompromised patients and the rest of their household can be easily identified for review. If a household member is not already eligible by some other means, the code 'Lives with immunocompromised person' may be added to their record.
SIV-Q11: In conjunction with working through SIV-Q10, this is able to list the patients who have had the code added in the past few years, but these patients will need the code re-adding on an annual basis in order to maintain eligibility to receive a flu vaccination.
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SIV-Q12 and SIV-Q13: These two searches highlight patients who were coded as healthcare workers or needing influenza vaccination in the previous 3 years (but not this year). Patients would require repeat coding in order to maintain eligibility to receive a flu vaccination. Patients appearing in these searches may also appear in SIV-D99 as the relevant code has not been added this year.
SIV-Q13 provides a report containing all 'Needs influenza vaccination' from the past 3.5 years along with associated text to identify in advance which patients could definitely need a flu jab. Following clinical review it may be appropriate to code 'Long term indication for seasonal influenza vaccination' to save annual coding.
SIV-Q13 provides a report containing all 'Needs influenza vaccination' from the past 3.5 years along with associated text to identify in advance which patients could definitely need a flu jab. Following clinical review it may be appropriate to code 'Long term indication for seasonal influenza vaccination' to save annual coding.
SIV-Q15: The EMIS red box utilises Primis code lists to highlight eligible patients for vaccination. This list differs slightly from the eligible codes used by CQRS, meaning that patients identified here will not be picked up by CQRS for payment unless coding for an at-risk clinical condition is refined or "Needs influenza vaccination" is added.
SIV-Q16: This is less relevant for 25-26 since the flu indicators in IIF were removed, but the rule logic for invitations has been retained since data for the retired indicators are still extracted. Remember the flu programme only officially starts on 1st September.
SIV-Q17: Useful for later in the season, and again a legacy of the IIF indicators, this search identifies patients who haven't been vaccinated and have only received 1 invitation. In the absence of vaccination declined codes they could be invited again.
U) Utility Tools
This folder contains separate elements which are linked, and may be used as the final step in converting a list of patients for recall into a mass communication. It includes influenza invitation searches which can be added to recall searches if practices wish to identify only those patients who have not had an invitation or who have had a specific number of invitations. These may also help if you are doing combined flu and covid recalls - see our support article for further details.
SIV-U001:
So far the flu searches have not covered care home residents in much detail. This search helps to separate out care home residents for whom there might be special local arrangements to run a planned vaccination session for the entire home.
The PCN DES now provides a defined national solution to documenting care home residents. With this in mind the care home residents search only incorporates patients with the relevant 'Lives in a care home' type coding. Since it is in a Practice's interest to maintain an accurate care home resident cohort for EHCH-01, PCIT have assumed that Practices will be doing this.
It is recognised that some care homes - often non-CQC registered - are not covered under the PCN DES so the coding might be absent. Practices may wish to add any such patients to the search by adding a rule to look for patients living at a particular address and postcode.
SIV-U002: Like care home residents above, your Practice may have special arrangements to vaccinate this group, either using district nursing teams or your own staff going out on visits.
SIV-U010: The placeholder itself is simply a search to help join the rest of the searches and reports. The structure of the searches helps to separate out patients with mobile numbers from those who do not have a mobile number on record. It is envisaged that the placeholder will be linked as a child search to a patient group from the RECALL folder. This could be done either by cutting and pasting the searches (including descendants) to the RECALL folder, or copying.
To link the placeholder to a parent search, right click on the Placeholder, select Properties, press the Results from radio button, then use the spyglass to locate the targeted cohort.
Having covered care home residents and housebound patients above, these two groups have been excluded from the communications searches to save inviting patients who are already likely to receive their vaccination during a home visit.
The mobile searches go further than simply separating those patients with an 07 number on their record. Of course it should be stated that only 07 numbers appearing in the mobile number field will be picked up, so any mobile numbers saved in the home telephone number field will not be listed. The searches are also designed to exclude those patients who have declined permission for their mobile number to be used in specific situations and place them in the 'no mobile number' group.
For those patients with a mobile number, the most effective and cheapest method of communication is to send a text message inviting for a flu jab PCIT have provided a number of different pre-configured reports depending on the platform used. Practices are welcome to delete the mobile reports which are not relevant. For everybody else a mail shot will probably be the preferred method used for invitation.
SIV-U020: As above, the placeholder itself is simply a search to help join the rest of the searches. These include searches for patients who have not yet received a flu invitation and those who have received one or two invitations this flu season. The flu season is defined as 1/8/25-31/3/26 to recognise that many practices start sending flu invitations in August. Searches looking for one or two invitations will look at invitations sent at least 7 days apart, this is not a requirement of the specification as flu vaccinations are no longer included in QOF or IIF incentive schemes but helps to avoid patients appearing to have had 2 or more invitations in error due to duplicate coding.
These searches are also part of PCIT's recommended process for using our searches to send out recalls when running combined flu and covid clinics. Further information can be found in the support article for that process. X) Declined or Contraindicated
In addition to an overall search to count the number of patients who declined (with no subsequent flu vaccination), the declined codes are broken down into the various eligibility cohorts. This feature request may be of interest to Practices who want to understand how different groups of patients respond to invitations.
A single search SIV-X100 shows the number of patients who have a permanent contraindication for a flu vaccine. This search does not feature as an exclusion from the main recall searches as it picks up any adverse reaction or allergy to a specific flu vaccination. Newer types of vaccination may mean the patient could received a flu jab. In the event that a patient is called in, coding Seasonal influenza vaccination declined or contraindicated will remove the patient for the remainder of the flu season.
SIV-X101 was introduced in v4.1 to separate out expiring contraindications. These are where the Practice has coded Seasonal influenza vaccination contraindicated or ...not indicated since 1st April of this contract year. Patients appearing in this search will be removed from the searches in the recall folder
Coding
Flu vaccinations
Administration of first inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination [985151000000100]
Administration of first intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination [884861000000100]
Seasonal influenza vaccination given by midwife [1066171000000108]
Seasonal influenza vaccination given by pharmacist [955691000000108]
Seasonal influenza vaccination given while hospital inpatient [955701000000108]
Seasonal influenza vaccination given in school [1239861000000100]
First inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination given by pharmacist [1037351000000105]
First inactivated seasonal influenza vaccination given by midwife [1066181000000105]
First intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination given by pharmacist [1037311000000106]
Declined
Seasonal influenza vaccination declined [822931000000100]
First intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination declined [885971000000103]
Second intranasal seasonal influenza vaccination declined [886011000000103]
No consent for seasonal influenza vaccination [868491000000103]
Contraindicated
Seasonal influenza vaccination contraindicated [822971000000103]
Seasonal influenza vaccination not indicated [822951000000107]
Adapting the searches for use within your own surgery
The searches provided are influenced entirely by codes and medication issues. PCIT know that to make the RECALL searches the most effective, another exclusion rule needs to be added. Unfortunately as a third party PCIT are unable to provide this because the rule is based on your organisation's appointment book. If the Practice's Appointment Book uses specific slot types for flu clinics, it is possible to factor any future booked appointments into the search to save inadvertently inviting patients who are already scheduled to receive a vaccination.
Due to the way the searches have been written since 2023/24, it is only necessary to apply the appointment exclusion to search SIV-B00.
To check who has booked a flu jab and exclude these from searches, you must first set up slot types for your flu clinic. If you have done this already then use the slot type you have already created. If you haven’t, please follow the guide below. In either case you will need to then amend the list of searches which are detailed after the following section.
If you don't set up the searches using the following instructions they will provide inaccurate results and you may not call in people who need vaccination, you MUST add the slot types to the highlighted searches and set up your local care homes.
Setting up slot types
To do this: go to your appointment book by:
- Click on the EMIS button in the top left of your EMIS screen
- Click on Appointments
- Click on Appointment Book
- Now click on the Appts Config:
The following screen will appear (your slot types will look different):
- Click on Slot Types
- then click Add
Fill in the box that appears as follows:
For all of these searches, click edit and after the “Appointment Date is on or after the search date” add another criteria, select slot type and select the slot type you have chosen for flu:
On all these searches, they should now look like this (the date bit may be different it's the slot type bit that has to be the same):
COVID and Flu combined recall
Whilst have been a lot of similarities between the eligible (18-64) cohort for flu and the equivalent cohort for COVID in previous seasons, there are in fact a number of differences which mean that one search cannot simply be used to define both groups. The Autumn 2025 season changed the criteria for COVID, effectively limiting it to over 75s and immunosuppressed patients.
Due to the complexity of some criteria Primary Care IT has decided to keep completely separate sets of searches, to be found in folders 005 COVID and 016 Seasonal Influenza. If a Practice wishes to combine searches, we are happy to advise on a suitable approach to this exercise.
For over 75s, add a new child search based on SIV-B10, looking for patients over the age of 75.
When using this new search for recall, patients aged 65-74 must be taken from the Population Excluded, or make a copy of the age rule and reverse the green and red outcomes.
For immunocompromised patients, standalone searches combining the results of other searches can be created.
Practices should be aware that the search criteria for COVID immunosuppressed cannot accurately reflect the Green Book therefore a degree of clinical review is required. The following rule logics generating 3 different outcomes only take into account those immunosuppressed patients who are extremely likely to be eligible. The COVID booster recall folder contains a second search (d) for patients who should be clinically reviewed for suitability, and/or their daily dose calculated for immune modulating drugs as described in the Green Book.
- SIV-A21 can be found in folder 016 within the Q) DATA QUALITY sub folder
- SIV-B00 can be found in folder 016 within the B) RECALL sub folder
- c) 6m-74 y immunosuppressed for COVID invitation can be found in folder 005B COVID booster recalls (Autumn) within the B) Recall sub folder.
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.
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