How can I run my Flu and Covid vaccination campaigns?

Introduction

This video provides an overview of how a system can assist in running your Flu and Covid vaccination campaigns.  Please note that some of the report folders and names have been updated since the video was recorded, but the principles are still the same.  

The new folder names are Welby Innovate Prescribing / 8 Flu Only and Welby Innovate Prescribing / 8 Flu and Covid depending on whether you are offering Covid vaccinations along with Flu vaccinations this year. 

If you have not already let us know which vaccines you are using and which prompts you would like activated for your campaign this year, please complete this short questionnaire and we will get things set up for you.

The Flu and Covid campaign has been complicated this year for some practices, due to the cancellation of some vaccine orders.  We hope the detailed information below is helpful, but please do 

Checking Eligibility

There are reports in each of the folders 8 Flu Only and 8 Flu and Covid for you to check eligibility for flu, as in the screenshot below ...

Managing Consent

If you are planning to use only Registered Health Professionals to give vaccinations this year, you can ignore this section and go straight to the section Inviting Patients.

However if you are planning to use HCAs, Nurse Associates or other support staff to give vaccinations this year, there is a set of reports in each of the folders to help you manage gaining consent before inviting patients.  

Please note that for the reports where aIIV is being used for patients aged 50+ or 65+, we have used the patient's date of birth to determine their age by the end of the flu season, rather than their current age, in line with the current vaccination guidance.

The reports come under the section header below ...

C  Consent Needed - Vaccines being given by non-Registered Health Professionals or Nurse Associates

We have a support article with some general information about managing consent for vaccinations How do I manage consent for vaccinations?, but there is more specific information for the Flu and Covid campaign here.

You first need to find the correct consent section for the vaccines you are giving this year.  If you have told us which vaccines you are giving, you will only have patients in the correct set of reports, so it should be easy to find them.  If you don't have patients in any of the reports, you probably still need to tell us which vaccines you are using.  You can do this by completing the short questionnaire linked in the Introduction.

Once you have found the correct consent section, you will find the following ...

• Reports for ADULT patients who are eligible but do not have consent recorded yet.  These are for information and to check your progress with gaining consent.

• REVIEW FIRST reports.  These reports identify patients who had the same vaccine last year as they will be given this year, and who were given the vaccine last year by a Registered Health Professional (RHP).  You can code this consent now, and it will carry forward to this year as well.

To do this, you need to run each REVIEW FIRST report, then right-click the report and choose Breakdown Results.  Choose Event done by and Event month and year as your breakdown options, as in the screenshot, and click the button to Refresh.  Please note that if you have Nurse Associates in your list of staff, they cannot independently obtain informed consent, so do not include them in the next part of the process.  For all the other RHPs in the list of staff, add the three codes specified in the report name, with a date of the first day of the month the vaccine was given.

• Reports to SEND vaccination consent questionnaires.  You need to allow a day after processing the REVIEW FIRST reports before running these reports, to allow the consent codes you have added to be taken account of.  The consent questionnaires include a link to the Patient Information Leaflet for the specific vaccine they are being offered this year.

Recording PSDs

If you are planning to use only Registered Health Professionals to give vaccinations this year, you can ignore this section and go straight to the section Inviting Patients.

There are reports in the folders Welby Innovate Prescribing / 8 Flu Only and 8 Flu and Covid to help you identify patients who need may need PSDs adding to their record. There is a more detailed article on how to bulk add PSDs here. 

Inviting Patients

Navigate to the reports Welby Innovate Prescribing / 8 Flu Only or 8 Flu and Covid depending on whether you are offering Covid vaccinations along with Flu vaccinations for this campaign. 

• If you are planning to use only Registered Health Professionals to give vaccinations this year, you can use the invite reports under the section headers below, depending on whether you are offering Covid vaccinations along with Flu vaccinations.

I    Invites (All Eligible) - ONLY use if ALL vaccines will be given by Registered Health Professionals

I    Invites for Flu AND Covid COMBINED (All Eligible) - ONLY use if ALL vaccines will be given by registered health professionals

• If you are using HCAs, Nurse Associates or other support staff to give vaccinations, you will find patients split into separate invite reports depending on whether they have consent recorded.  You will find them under the section headers below, depending on whether you are offering Covid vaccinations along with Flu vaccinations.

C I     Invites (Eligible & Consented Only)

C I.    Invites (Eligible & NOT Consented) -  Registered Health Professionals Available to Book With

C I           Invites for Flu AND Covid COMBINED (Eligible & Consented Only)

C I.          Invites for Flu AND Covid COMBINED (Eligible & NOT Consented) Registered Health Professionals Available to Book With

In all sections you will find separate sets of reports for children, pregnant patients and adults.  

There are separate reports for sending appointment booking links, messages without booking links, and letters.   The booking links you will need are as follows, depending on whether you are offering Covid vaccinations.  You will also need versions of the appointment booking links with (RP) at the end if you are using our consent process. 

Flu Vaccination (>18).

Flu Vaccination (<18).

Covid Vaccination.

Flu & COVID Vaccination.

There are separate reports for sending 1st, 2nd and 3rd invites.

If you have attached the flag Injection to your Flu and / or Covid clinic appointments, patients will not be sent further invites once they have booked one of these appointments.

Booking Patients

First make sure that you have free slot searches configured.  There are reports in the folder Welby Innovate Prescribing / Free Slot Searches to help you identify the ones you need.  Please note the reminder at the top of the folder that you will also need versions of the free slot searches with (RP) at the end if you are using our consent process.

If you have chosen to be prompted to book patients in for either flu or flu and covid vaccinations, the Green A appointment prompt will be visible in the demographics box for eligible patients who don't already have an appointment.  When you click on the Green A, a prompt similar to the one below will appear, depending on which vaccines the patient is eligible for and which vaccines you are giving at your practice ...

Giving Flu and Covid Vaccines

You can request that the vaccination template launches automatically when a consultation is started in a flu clinic.  Alternatively the vaccination template can be accessed from the sidebar or demographics alert by clicking on this icon ...

This template displays useful information, including whether the patient has PSDs recorded, and quick entry protocols for giving a number of different vaccines, including flu and covid ...

For each vaccine, we've got various options, but the main one to use is the button that says "Give xxx". This will launch a protocol that checks the staff role. If an HCA is using the system, it will check for an appropriate PSD. Each protocol records the appropriate vaccine, advice given and whether the vaccine was administered under a PSD or PGD.

Give it a try on a test patient and let us know if any issues or the vaccines aren't correct for your practice.  

FAQs

What happens if we change vaccines part way through the campaign?

For example you may start your campaign offering IIVc to patients <65 and aIIV to patients 65+, but have insufficient vaccine to vaccinate all your older patients with aIIV and have to switch to IIVc for all patients.  If you have used our consent process, patients aged 65+ by the end of the flu season will only have consent recorded for aIIV.  We would therefore recommend letting us know you have changed the vaccines that you are using, to IIVc for all patients.  Once we have updated your localisations, patients who need to give consent for IIVc now will appear in the appropriate reports.  Alternatively you could choose to use Registered Health Professionals to vaccinate all your patients aged 65+, so that consent can be gained at the time of vaccination.

How do we invite patients if we are running separate clinics for different age groups?

The reports to invite patients are split into separate sections for children (<18), adults (18+) and pregnant patients (18+).  We know that some practices may want to invite patients to separate clinics based on their age, especially if they are using different vaccines for different age groups, for example aIIV for patients aged 50+ or 65+.  In this case we recommend breaking down the adult invite reports by date of birth, then sending invites separately for each age group.  

How do we direct patients correctly if we are running drop-in clinics?

If you are running drop-in clinics and using both Registered Health Professionals and non-Registered Health Professionals to vaccinate patients, you will need to check whether consent and a PSD has been recorded, before directing them to the appropriate staff member for vaccination.  The way to do this 'at the door' is to launch the Vaccinations template and check for both consent and a PSD, as in the example screenshot below.  If they are not in place then patients would need to be consented and given the vaccination by a Registered Health Professional.