PRIMIS is delighted to have been commissioned by Public Health England (PHE) to develop and maintain the national data specification that will assist in the identification of priority patients for the Covid-19 vaccination programme and will additionally allow all GP clinical system suppliers to provide regular activity reports regarding vaccine uptake to PHE and Government.
This data specification comprises all the relevant SNOMED clinical terms (over 17,000 codes) and the inherent logical business rules that help to identify eligible patients and assign them to the relevant recall groups.
An equivalent specification has also been produced in legacy terminology (Read Version 2) for the devolved nations within the UK.
As part of the ongoing maintenance, the specification will be subject to close monitoring and validation procedures and regularly reviewed. As such, users of the specification should ensure that they have the latest version.
Dr Dai Evans, PRIMIS Clinical Adviser and GP, commented: ‘Translating the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) requirements for vaccinating the population into a coding terminology and logical business rules has not been a trivial task. The specification has now been implemented across the NHS both to invite patients for vaccination and to monitor the success of the vaccination programme.”
Kerry Oliver, Managing Director of PRIMIS, added: ‘We are very proud of our work on the COVID-19 vaccination programme, which is real testament to the expertise and skills of the PRIMIS team, who have been working at the very forefront of primary care health informatics for over 20 years.”
Anyone wishing to request a copy of the PRIMIS Covid-19 specification in SNOMED CT should complete the online request form, which is available via the PRIMIS Covid-19 information web page
The letter from the JCVI to the Health and Social Care Secretary: 23 February 2021 which mentions PRIMIS can be found on the GOV.UK website
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