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We’re currently transitioning Ardens Clinical support articles to this new Knowledge Base. Content will be added progressively, so you may find limited articles available at this stage.
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ℹ️ Introduction
This article explains how the Ardens resources can support your practice in planning, delivering, monitoring, and evaluating the Seasonal Influenza vaccination programme in line with NHS England guidance. By the end of this article, you will understand how to use the available Ardens resources throughout the vaccination season.
Background
The NHS England Guidance for the National Seasonal Influenza immunisation programme 2026-27 outlines the following vaccination schedule:
From 1st September 2026 |
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From October 2026 (exact date to be confirmed) |
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Recommended Vaccines (JCVI)
6m–1y: IIVc (2nd: IIVe)
2–17y: LAIV (2nd: IIVc / 3rd: IIVe)
18–49y: IIVc/IIVcr (2nd: IIVe)
50–64y: alIV/IIVc/IIV-HD (off label to those aged 50 to 59 years)/IIVr (Second line - IIVe)
65+ (on 31/03/26): aIIV/IIVc/IIV-HD/IIVr
How Ardens Can Help
Ardens resources support practices throughout the flu vaccination programme by helping to:
Identify eligible cohorts
Organise recalls and invitations
Manage housebound and care home visits
Record vaccine administration
Monitor uptake and payment activity
Forecast future vaccine demand
⚠️ Please note:
Ardens searches use SNOMED codes, while the Green Book uses clinical definitions
Not all eligibility criteria translate directly into coded data
Business rules for payment may differ from clinical eligibility
Clinical judgement should guide decisions in ambiguous cases
📅Plan
Before sending out any invites, we recommend reviewing the following reports. These will help you to identify your eligible patients and ensure your invite lists are accurate and clinically appropriate.
Cohorts
Use these searches to estimate vaccine demand and plan stock orders. They are not intended for sending invitations. These results include all patients in each eligible group, regardless of whether they have already been vaccinated or have declined a vaccination.
⚠️ Please note: Patients may appear in more than one cohort. These reports do not remove patients once invite codes are added, so using them for invites may result in duplicate communications.
Due
These reports focus specifically on patients who are still outstanding for vaccination and have not declined vaccination. There is a search to identify all patients due, with additional searches broken down by cohort.
Review before
The Review Before reports help identify records requiring validation prior to invitation activity.
Vaccine suitability: Check for clinical reasons a patient should not receive a particular vaccine, or may need an alternative.
Eligibility coding: Ensure patient records reflect current eligibility so they appear in invite and payment reports.
Status verification: Confirm whether a patient’s recorded status is still correct, and update if not.
For PSD: Identifies patients who had flu vaccines in previous seasons and may require a new Patient Specific Direction (PSD) this year. A prescriber should review each patient individually and record the PSD using:
SystmOne: “Electronic PSD authorisation” field in the Seasonal Influenza Vaccination template.
EMIS: PSD protocol.
⚠️Please note: These patients need to be reviewed individually and not in batches to ensure that it's clinically safe to administer the vaccine and protect staff administering it.
✉️ Notify
These resources help GP practices efficiently manage the Seasonal Influenza vaccination programme by identifying eligible patients, organising invitations and follow-ups and planning vaccine orders - including special arrangements for care home and housebound patients.
Invites
Invite reports include all eligible patients (excluding those patients living in a care home or who are housebound). These are broken down by 1st, 2nd and 3rd invites.
Invite reports are grouped into the following folders:
Sept - Early groups (children, pregnant women, under-18 in risk groups).
Oct- Later groups (65+, at-risk adults, carers, close contacts of immunocompromised individuals).
⚠️ Please note:
Patients who turn 18 during September (and are not pregnant) are excluded from the September invite reports but will be included in the October invite reports (payment rules). If you wish to manage them differently, use the report ‘Currently 17 and turning 18 in September (not pregnant) – September payment applies only to under-18s and pregnancy (Included in invites from October onwards by default)’.
Care home residents and housebound patients are excluded from the main invite suite and can be found in the Visits folder.
Visits
Separate visit reports are provided for housebound and care home residents so practices can use the list of patients to support administration of the seasonal influenza vaccination outside of the practice:
Care home residents (housebound / not housebound)
Housebound but not in a care home
These patients are excluded from all invitation reports, so use the Visits reports to plan and organise their vaccinations.
ℹ️ Remember to review relevant reports in folder "02. Review before" first to ensure the patient lists are accurate.
Exporting & messaging:
You can export invite lists to CSV and send messages using Accurx, SystmOne Communication Annexe or another third-party platform. Please see EMIS Web and SystmOne support articles for further information on how to do this.
Invite Codes
After inviting a patient, ensure the appropriate invitation SNOMED code is added to their record. This ensures they move to the correct 2nd or 3rd invite list. Always verify codes before use.
View codes
Influenza vaccination first telephone invitation 1095821000000105
Influenza vaccination first verbal invitation 860151000000103
Influenza vaccination invitation email 844941000000103
Influenza vaccination invitation first email 844961000000102
Influenza vaccination invitation first letter sent 200481000000107
Influenza vaccination invitation first short message service text message sent 1484831000000102
Influenza vaccination invitation letter sent 315641001
Influenza vaccination invitation second email 844981000000106
Influenza vaccination invitation second letter sent 200491000000109
Influenza vaccination invitation second short message service text message sent 1484841000000106
Influenza vaccination invitation short message service text message sent 1484821000000104
Influenza vaccination invitation third email 845001000000101
Influenza vaccination invitation third letter sent 200501000000103
Influenza vaccination invitation third short message service text message sent 1484851000000109
Influenza vaccination second telephone invitation 1095831000000107
Influenza vaccination second verbal invitation 860171000000107
Influenza vaccination third telephone invitation 1095841000000103
Influenza vaccination third verbal invitation 860291000000101
Influenza vaccination verbal invitation 761311000000109
Invitation by telephone for influenza vaccination 737041000
⚠️ Please note: Always check the code each time when adding to the patient record. Ardens are not responsible or liable for the codes above and any incorrect code being batch added to the patient records.
💉 Deliver (Coming Soon!)
Administer
To support vaccine delivery and ensure accurate coding, protocols, and templates are available for consistent and efficient documentation.
📈Evaluate
These resources help practices manage and monitor the Seasonal Influenza vaccination programme by identifying data issues, tracking vaccination uptake, forecasting future eligibility, and providing dashboards to analyse and target patient groups more effectively.
Activity
These reports highlight the total number of vaccinations given, broken down by Last Month or This Season, as well as those administered here or elsewhere. You can also view invitations sent and vaccines not given, including those declined, contraindicated, or with no response.
Review
To help ensure accurate payment and data integrity, several data quality reports are available. These reports highlight potential data entry issues that could affect payment eligibility. Common data quality scenarios include:
Needs influenza vaccination - vaccinated but not in business rules eligibility - Add 'Needs influenza immunisation' dated on or after 1st September 2026 if eligible.
Duplicate or incorrect vaccine codes - Remove duplicates, correct errors, or add correct code using the Ardens Seasonal Influenza template (or protocol if EMIS).
Inactive SMS invite codes - Replace with active invite code.
Dose sequence errors - Add missing first dose or correct “given elsewhere” entries.
Out-of-season vaccinations - Review August entries and September entries for 18+ non-pregnant patients.
Uptake
These reports monitors vaccine uptake for all cohorts including those not administered due to no response, contraindications and declines.
Payment
PPA Claims (FP34D) - Assist with vaccine cost claims without needing prescriptions, as considered a 'high volume vaccine'.
CQRS - Track patients who meet the requirements for payment claims.
Insights
For Ardens Manager subscribers, the Vaccinations dashboard provides a clear visual overview of:
Eligible cohorts
Number of invitations sent
Vaccination uptake rates
You can also filter and analyse data by:
Clinical risk groups
Low uptake groups
This helps you prioritise and target specific patient populations more effectively.
Activity
Review
Uptake
❓FAQs
Why are care home patients excluded from invite reports?
Care home and housebound patients are managed separately within the Visits workflow.
Can invitation reports be used directly for messaging?
Yes. Reports can be exported to CSV format and used with approved messaging platforms.
Why are some patients excluded from September invites?
Patients turning 18 during September are included from October onwards in line with payment rules unless pregnant.
🏫Additional Support
To further your understanding of the Ardens resources:
Book training for your GP Practice, PCN or ICB
Contact our Support Team for support in real time