005B COVID booster recall
The latest version of 005B COVID booster recall is v3.0
The COVID booster recall has become a seasonal event, with different eligibility criteria for Spring and Autumn campaigns. These searches 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 collection of search folders.
The Autumn 2025 campaign has carried on the criteria specified for the Spring 2025 campaign, meaning the number of eligible patients is significantly less than the Autumn 2024 campaign.
Searches
Each COVID booster recall folder has a similar structure, but contain slightly different searches depending on the seasonal campaign criteria.
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 searches are for information and understanding only - do NOT use searches in this folder for recall
Due to a date of birth rule, these folders are campaign and year specific, meaning the Autumn 2023 folder should not be used in Autumn 2024.
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 a 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.
Housebound patients - A search is provided to find all housebound patients which fall into one of the above categories. Being housebound in itself does not make the patient eligible for the COVID vaccination. The housebound search is only separated out to benefit recall and invitation in folder B) Recall.
We have also included patients with asplenia or rare inherited anaemia in this search - this represents the row below immunosuppression in Table 3 of the Green Book
As of July 2025, the only direction for Over 75s is those who have had their 75th birthday. The search has been designed to be quickly changed so patients currently aged 74 but who will turn 75 before the end of the campaign are included. Rule 3 can be switched to Either/Or.
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 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 EMIS (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 recall search.
We are aware of an issue where certain codes are being picked up as a reason for a patient to be at risk. This is due to EMIS adding additional steroid adverse reaction codes to IMTEMP, a nationally defined reference set. We raised a case with EMIS to investigate (February 2024).
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.
The searches have been designed to take advantage of EMIS' relative run date feature. To include patients whose 75th birthday is very soon, run the folder with a relative run date of the same day as a planned clinic.
Practices may notice a significant difference to the search results depending on the date they use to run the search. This is due to how the recall searches handle invitations, especially when running the folder to issue a chasing invitation. Patients are excluded if they have had 2 separate invitations in during the campaign, or an invitation was sent in the last 6 weeks - running the folder with a future run date may pick up patients who have been invited very recently.
Practices may notice a significant difference to the search results depending on the date they use to run the search. This is due to how the recall searches handle invitations, especially when running the folder to issue a chasing invitation. Patients are excluded if they have had 2 separate invitations in during the campaign, or an invitation was sent in the last 6 weeks - running the folder with a future run date may pick up patients who have been invited very recently.
Please read the section "Immunosuppression" above before issuing any invitations to patients in the 'at risk' search.
Autumn recall of immunocompromised patients
The Autumn booster campaign includes patients aged 6 months to 74 years who are immunocompromised. A limitation of reference sets used is that some codes do not qualify for a vaccination. In v2.1 the cohort was separated into those who could be invited straightaway (search c), and those who should be checked by a clinician (search d) prior to invitation.
It is intended that practices work down these searches from a) through to e).
Report c) Immunosuppressed for COVID invitation includes patients who should always be eligible according to the Green Book such as those with a history of a condition and those currently undergoing immune suppressing treatment.
Report d) Immunosuppressed patients requiring REVIEW prior to invite takes the remaining likely immune suppressed 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, while 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. The reports for adults and children have been built to show the codes or medications that are likely to make a patient eligible for a vaccine.
The report output includes a number of columns to extract various conditions and drugs which are likely to make a patient eligible, depending on when they last occurred.
Exporting the results of the report to Excel may help to accelerate the review process. Sorting the list by those on medication would allow somebody to quickly calculate a daily/weekly dose based on the dose instructions. Some patients will be identified for invitation, therefore a smaller list of patients with codes with or without active lower dose immune modulating drugs could be passed to a clinician to review individual records.
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.
Report e) Housebound patients for COVID invitation includes any housebound patients over the age of 75 as well as patients who would have appeared in search c) 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 d). A column for housebound status is provided.
C) Vaccinated in campaign
Patients who have a record of a coded vaccination during the current campaign are separated by cohort. The final search 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.
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 search. 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 vaccine contraindicated 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.
COVID vaccination invitation (1 in last 6 weeks or 2 in campaign) Counts all patients who have been invited in the last 42 days (6 weeks) OR have received two separate invitations for COVID vaccination in the period leading up to - and during - the current campaign. This search will work effectively as long as an invitation code has been added to the record. If no invitation code has been used, the recall searches will only reduce if/when a vaccination is recorded.
COVID immunocompromised at risk groups takes the immunocompromised clinical risk groups listed on Table 3 (adults) and Table 4 (under 16s) of Green Book Chapter 14a. The search contains QOF code clusters, COVID19 specific code clusters, and other clusters which reflect the conditions described in Tables 3 or 4.
Last COVID vaccination administered by other provider identifies eligible patients receiving a COVID vaccination in the last 12 months but excluding the current campaign) who had the vaccination given elsewhere. Two outputs are offered; an aggregate report breaks down the list based on a secondary code delivered by the PharmOutcomes messages to denote the type of vaccination clinic, while a list report can be exported to Excel and filtered to identify vaccinations given at specific location.
Vaccinations given elsewhere are sensitive to how the vaccination clinic location has been configured in PharmOutcomes. It is possible that "Community health services" locations will include 'friendly' PCN vaccination centres. By manipulating the list report data in Excel these locations can be removed, and the NHS numbers reimported to EMIS to build a new list.
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
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
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
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
See the section in the support article for 016 Seasonal Influenza.
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 (26 April 2023 version), (18 April 2024 version)
Support Information
Development Log
VERSION NUMBER 3.0.0
V/N: 3.0.0 - Updated for Autumn 2025, including new reports for vaccinations given elsewhere in previous campaigns.
V/N: 2.3.0 - Addition of Housebound searches.
V/N: 2.2.0 - Updated for Autumn 2024
V/N: 1.0.0 - Published 1st September 2023
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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