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Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare activity across a broad range of clinical services. The NHS stopped non-urgent work in March 2020, later recommending services be restored to near-normal levels before winter where possible. Aim: To describe changes in the volume and variation of coded clinical activity in general practice across six clinical areas: cardiovascular disease, diabetes, mental health, female and reproductive health, screening and related procedures, and processes related to medication. Design and setting: With the approval of NHS England, a cohort study was conducted of 23.8 million patient records in general practice, in situ using OpenSAFELY. Method: Common primary care activities were analysed using Clinical Terms Version 3 codes and keyword searches from January 2019 to December 2020, presenting median and deciles of code usage across practices per month. Results: Substantial and widespread changes in clinical activity in primary care were identified since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with generally good recovery by December 2020. A few exceptions showed poor recovery and warrant further investigation, such as mental health (for example, for 'Depression interim review' the median occurrences across practices in December 2020 was down by 41.6% compared with December 2019). Conclusion: Granular NHS general practice data at population-scale can be used to monitor disruptions to healthcare services and guide the development of mitigation strategies. The authors are now developing real-time monitoring dashboards for the key measures identified in this study, as well as further studies using primary care data to monitor and mitigate the indirect health impacts of COVID-19 on the NHS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Early evidence has shown that anticoagulant reduces the risk of thrombotic events in those infected with COVID-19. However, evidence of the role of routinely prescribed oral anticoagulants (OACs) in COVID-19 outcomes is limited. Aim: To investigate the association between OACs and COVID-19 outcomes in those with atrial fibrillation and a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 2. Design and setting: On behalf of NHS England, a population-based cohort study was conducted. Method: The study used primary care data and pseudonymously-linked SARS-CoV-2 antigen testing data, hospital admissions, and death records from England. Cox regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) for COVID-19 outcomes comparing people with current OAC use versus non-use, accounting for age, sex, comorbidities, other medications, deprivation, and general practice. Results: Of 71 103 people with atrial fibrillation and a CHA2DS2-VASc score of 2, there were 52 832 current OAC users and 18 271 non-users. No difference in risk of being tested for SARS-CoV-2 was associated with current use (adjusted HR [aHR] 0.99, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.95 to 1.04) versus non-use. A lower risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (aHR 0.77, 95% CI = 0.63 to 0.95) and a marginally lower risk of COVID-19-related death (aHR, 0.74, 95% CI = 0.53 to 1.04) were associated with current use versus non-use. Conclusion: Among those at low baseline stroke risk, people receiving OACs had a lower risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 and severe COVID-19 outcomes than non-users; this might be explained by a causal effect of OACs in preventing severe COVID-19 outcomes or unmeasured confounding, including more cautious behaviours leading to reduced infection risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare activity. The NHS stopped non-urgent work in March 2020, later recommending services be restored to near-normal levels before winter where possible.Aim: To describe the volume and variation of coded clinical activity in general practice, taking respiratory disease and laboratory procedures as examples.Design and Setting: Working on behalf of NHS England, a cohort study was conducted of 23.8 million patient records in general practice, in situ using OpenSAFELY.Method: Activity using Clinical Terms Version 3 codes and keyword searches from January 2019 to September 2020 are described.Results: Activity recorded in general practice declined during the pandemic, but largely recovered by September. There was a large drop in coded activity for laboratory tests, with broad recovery to pre-pandemic levels by September. One exception was the international normalised ratio test, with a smaller reduction (median tests per 1000 patients in 2020: February 8.0; April 6.2; September 6.9). The pattern of recording for respiratory symptoms was less affected, following an expected seasonal pattern and classified as 'no change'. Respiratory infections exhibited a sustained drop, not returning to pre-pandemic levels by September. Asthma reviews experienced a small drop but recovered, whereas chronic obstructive pulmonary disease reviews remained below baseline.Conclusion: An open-source software framework was delivered to describe trends and variation in clinical activity across an unprecedented scale of primary care data. The COVD-19 pandemic led to a substantial change in healthcare activity. Most laboratory tests showed substantial reduction, largely recovering to near-normal levels by September, with some important tests less affected and recording of respiratory disease codes was mixed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: On 8 December 2020 NHS England administered the first COVID-19 vaccination.Aim: To describe trends and variation in vaccine coverage in different clinical and demographic groups in the first 100 days of the vaccine rollout.Design and Setting: With the approval of NHS England, a cohort study was conducted of 57.9 million patient records in general practice in England, in situ and within the infrastructure of the electronic health record software vendors EMIS and TPP using OpenSAFELY.Method: Vaccine coverage across various subgroups of Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority cohorts is described.Results: A total of 20 852 692 patients (36.0%) received a vaccine between 8 December 2020 and 17 March 2021. Of patients aged ≥80 years not in a care home (JCVI group 2) 94.7% received a vaccine, but with substantial variation by ethnicity (White 96.2%, Black 68.3%) and deprivation (least deprived 96.6%, most deprived 90.7%). Patients with pre-existing medical conditions were more likely to be vaccinated with two exceptions: severe mental illness (89.5%) and learning disability (91.4%). There were 275 205 vaccine recipients who were identified as care home residents (JCVI group 1; 91.2% coverage). By 17 March, 1 257 914 (6.0%) recipients had a second dose.Conclusion: The NHS rapidly delivered mass vaccination. In this study a data-monitoring framework was deployed using publicly auditable methods and a secure in situ processing model, using linked but pseudonymised patient-level NHS data for 57.9 million patients. Targeted activity may be needed to address lower vaccination coverage observed among certain key groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Long COVID describes new or persistent symptoms at least 4 weeks after onset of acute COVID-19. Clinical codes to describe this phenomenon were recently created.Aim: To describe the use of long-COVID codes, and variation of use by general practice, demographic variables, and over time.Design and Setting: Population-based cohort study in English primary care.Method: Working on behalf of NHS England, OpenSAFELY data were used encompassing 96% of the English population between 1 February 2020 and 25 May 2021. The proportion of people with a recorded code for long COVID was measured overall and by demographic factors, electronic health record software system (EMIS or TPP), and week.Results: Long COVID was recorded for 23 273 people. Coding was unevenly distributed among practices, with 26.7% of practices having never used the codes. Regional variation ranged between 20.3 per 100 000 people for East of England (95% confidence interval [CI] = 19.3 to 21.4) and 55.6 per 100 000 people in London (95% CI = 54.1 to 57.1). Coding was higher among females (52.1, 95% CI = 51.3 to 52.9) than males (28.1, 95% CI = 27.5 to 28.7), and higher among practices using EMIS (53.7, 95% CI = 52.9 to 54.4) than those using TPP (20.9, 95% CI = 20.3 to 21.4).Conclusion: Current recording of long COVID in primary care is very low, and variable between practices. This may reflect patients not presenting; clinicians and patients holding different diagnostic thresholds; or challenges with the design and communication of diagnostic codes. Increased awareness of diagnostic codes is recommended to facilitate research and planning of services, and also surveys with qualitative work to better evaluate clinicians' understanding of the diagnosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For submission instructions visit: bjgp.org/letters Our paper in the I BJGP i [1] describes COVID-19 vaccine coverage in the first 100 days of the NHS vaccination campaign in England on 57.9 m people, with detailed data on vaccination rates in specific clinical and demographic subgroups. Readers are encouraged to view the full updated COVID-19 vaccine reports to inform vaccination campaigns locally and address any inequalities in vaccination coverage. [Extracted from the article]

The overall prevalence of coded long COVID diagnosis in the total population is now 99.6 per 100 000, compared with 40.1 per 100 000 in the original paper, due solely to greater followup time. 2 Walker AJ, MacKenna B, Inglesby P. Clinical coding of long COVID in English primary care: a federated analysis of 58 million patient records in situ using OpenSAFELY 2021 DOI: http://doi.org/10.53764/rpt.3917ab5ac5. [Extracted from the article]