Practices are encouraged to take the time to identify  patients who will turn 80 within the next six months but have not yet been given the shingles vaccination. Please get them booked in or record the code if they decline. This is a priority as it is time sensitive.

NCL ICB suggests that these patients are called in over the summer before they are offered their flu and COVID-19 vaccines for the winter season.

NCL ICB anticipates that there is work to do to improve QOF achievements for 2023-24. Practices are asked to check for correct coding, correcting where appropriate, and to ensure that, moving forward, nursing staff are using the correct Ardens template for recording shingles immunisation.

Practices are also asked to work with their nursing colleagues ensure that any corrections required are undertaken as soon as possible. This will impact your practice income if you do not act now (particularly CQRS).

The SNOMED codes can be used to assist with identifying patients who are in the immunocompromised cohort for the Shingrix® vaccine.

If you need any support identifying your patients, contact e: nclicb.vaccsandprevention@nhs.net

Practices should work with their system suppliers to set up an all-inclusive search for patients who are eligible but who have not already received their shingles vaccination. Patients that are contra-indicated for the shingles vaccination should be filtered out. Details of contra-indications are included in the Green Book Chapter.

Practices should add shingles alerts and pop-ups on to their clinical systems so that staff are reminded to offer the vaccination opportunistically each time an eligible patient’s record is opened. If your system is not able to do this, notifications can be set up manually. Ensure that clinicians are trained to monitor these alerts so that no patients are missed.

Accurate and complete patient data is needed, including deleting "ghosts" (patients who have transferred out of the area or died, but are still sent invitations for vaccinations).

The SNOMED codes above (in the how to find patients tab) are the correct clinical codes to use to record Shingrix® vaccines. The codes affect GP payments, so ensuring correct coding means that practices will receive the correct IoS and QOF target payments.

We’ve been made aware of a patient facing Shingles Eligibility calculator produced by Public Health Scotland -  Shingles vaccine eligibility by age calculator 2023/24 (scot.nhs.uk).

Please note that from a programme change perspective, Scotland has adopted a slightly different implementation approach, and their calculator reflects their policy decision on eligibility. In Scotland, a person is eligible from 1 September 2023 if they are 65 on that day, while in England they will become eligible from 1 September 2023 when they turn 65. We are aware that in addition to the age cut off difference, the calculator also does not apply to those who are immunocompromised, whereas the Shingles calculator produced for England for healthcare professionals does. We appreciate that there may be some confusion if people in England inadvertently accessing the Scottish calculator online.

Practices should continue to direct their patients to the information resources available on NHS vaccinations page or the NHS England and UKHSA Shingles eligibility calculator available to download from this webpage.