Population Risk Assessment (England)

NHS Digital is providing an additional list of newly identified patients to add to the Shielded Patient List (SPL), which in turn makes them a high priority for COVID-19 vaccinations. These patients have been identified using NHS England's COVID-19 Population Risk Assessment Tool. The purpose of this process is for practices to review the incoming data before it is extracted and sent back to NHS Digital for vaccination call and recall.

Important - Patients that have previously been on the SPL but have since been reviewed and a moderate or low risk entry added, are not affected by this update.

The process:

Step 1 - Receiving the data (Automated)

As directed by NHS Digital, we will shortly be adding the following Medical History entry to any Applied or Permanent patients that newly qualify for the 'At Risk' list:

Important – We have been instructed to include the provided reason in Comments for these entries. This can contain sensitive information. For this reason the new entry is being added as a Priority 3 to give you time to review the entry without it automatically being loaded to the SCR when accessed.

By default the History entry has:

  • Event Date – Date the patient was added to the Shielded Patient List (SPL) as provided by NHS England.

  • Read Term for Characteristic - 14Or.00 High risk category for developing complication from COVID-19 infection.

  • Comment – 'Added by COVID-19 Population Risk Assessment run on <Date>'.

    Note - Where a patient has a high risk score calculated using imputed values the comment will also include 'Calculated using assumed values'.

  • Priority – 3.

  • End Date – Blank.

  • Consultation Type - Administration.

These new additions should be reviewed by your practice to ensure the high risk category is correctly assigned.

Step 2 - Download the latest COVID -19 Clinical Audits

We have provided a Clinical Audit to help you review the newly identified patients.

Click here to download the In Practice Systems Daily Clinical Audit.
Click here for Downloading and Importing Clinical Audits.

Step 3 - What do I need to do?

To review the newly identified patients that have not been reviewed select the following two audit lines:

  • High risk category - Patients added by NHS Digital as a result of COVID-19 Population Risk Assessment Score (actual values) that have NOT had a COVID-19 review since (9Ej..)

  • High risk category - Patients added by NHS Digital as a result of COVID-19 Population Risk Assessment Score (assumed values) that have NOT had a COVID-19 review since (9Ej..)

Training Tip - Remember you can open the patient's record directly from Clinical Audit. Simply select the audit line, the group of patients display in the date tab, right click on the patient required and select Open Consultation Manager.

Once you have reviewed a patient, see below for what you to do to either, keep patients at high risk or, to downgrade to moderate or low risk:

High Risk Patients

We highly recommend you add an read term of 9Ej..00 Medical records review to the patient record:

  1. From Consultation Manager, with the correct patient selected, enter #9Ej in Read Term - Add:

  2. Press return and 9Ej..00 Medical records review displays.

  3. Select OK.

  4. Complete the History - Add screen as required.

  5. Select OK to save.
Note - Adding the read term 9Ej..00 Medical records review to the reviewed record removes the patient from the audit line. When the Clinical Audit is run again, the reviewed patient is removed, leaving only patients that require reviewing.

Downgrading to Moderate or Low Risk

We highly recommend you add an End date to the high risk entry and then enter a new moderate or low risk entry:

Adding an End Date

To add an end date to a Medical History:

  1. Highlight the record, right click and select Edit.

  2. Enter the date of the review in End Date .

  3. Select OK to save.

Adding a Moderate or Low Risk Entry

To add a moderate or low risk Medical History:

  1. From Consultation Manager, with the correct patient selected, enter one of the following in Read Term - Add:

    • #14Oq, for Moderate risk category for developing complication from COVID-19 infection, or

    • #14Op, for Low risk category for developing complication from COVID-19 infection:

  2. Press return and then select OK.

  3. Complete the History - Add screen as required.

    Note - The Event Date should be the same as the End Date on the high risk medical history entry.
  4. Select OK to save.

NHS England have provided a copy of the letter they are sending patients when they are removed from the SPL, click here here for a Vision 3 template of this letter for your use if required.

Note – To print this topic select Print in the top right corner and follow the on-screen prompts.