NHS England has published plans to create a national vaccination data record and to confirmed that a feature for booking vaccinations will be added to the NHS App.
The plans are included in a newly published NHS Vaccination Strategy, following the earlier indication to add more the app in the Plan for Digital Health and Social Care.
The new document includes a section highlighting the importance of timely and accurate data to support vaccinations, and pointing to the plan to create a national vaccination data record in 2024-25. This has been identified as one of the key use cases for the planned Federated Data Platform.
It says this will enable timely access to data by providers, commissioners and other appropriate users, and increase the use of national capabilities for direct care. It should also enable local commissioners and national bodies to understand the effectiveness of different approaches to vaccination programmes.
“We will make it easier for healthcare workers to capture vaccination event data, exploring increased automation and offline data capture to reduce the need to record data multiple times and reduce human error, and making processes more efficient for our workforce,” the document says.
Trials in the pipeline
It adds that over 2024-25 new services will be trialed for maternity and school age vaccinations and changes will be made to GP IT systems to improve the visibility of vaccinations.
The plan to make it possible to book a vaccination, and to see their relevant records, through the app is held up as an example of improving online services.
Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, said: “Through the NHS App, we’ll make sure booking a jab can be as easy as booking a cab so millions more people can get vaccinated – users will be able to access their full vaccine status in a matter of seconds and book jabs with a simple swipe and tap.”
NHS England added that it plans to increase the visibility of routine vaccine preventable diseases through the app, making it easier for people to identify any missed vaccinations in their history.
Over 33 million people are already signed up to the NHS App.
