‘Algorithm cause of jab anomalies’
A PUBLIC HEALTH ENGLAND algorithm is responsible for a number of people wrongly being called up early to get their Covid-19 vaccine.
There have been numerous reports over the last week of people without an underlying health issue being contacted as part of group six of the vaccine programme, which is for people aged 18 to 65 at moderate risk.
Health & Social Care said the algorithm being used to determine who was in this group had thrown up a small number of anomalies, but it is unclear how many people this involves.
This group has about 10,000 people in it.
A spokesman for HSC said it would have been too expensive and time-consuming for the records to be checked manually.
Instead it used a database which was created using HSC and primary care records.
‘In simple terms, we have extracted relevant primary care data in collaboration with all four practices and their IT provider and applied an approved Public Health England algorithm to identify people that should be included in groups 4b [clinically extremely vulnerable] and 6 [moderate risk] of the vaccination programme,’ he said.
‘This algorithm allows large amounts of information to be quickly sifted to assess how likely an individual is to become seriously ill if they contract Covid-19.’
However, this automated way of doing things does not allow for clinical discretion.
‘By combining data from different sources, the algorithm – which was designed based on NHS databases and when applied against the various local databases used across primary and secondary care may present some anomalous results.
‘This occurs in only a small number of cases and may mean that some members of the community may be called slightly out of sync. There is nothing to be anxious about.’
The spokesman added that while the local databases were different to the NHS ones the algorithm was designed for, the clinical codes used were the same.
‘What we do know is that any algorithm will produce some unusual results, as it is almost impossible for any algorithm to be perfect and you have to factor in it is searching data that is subject to human error in that it may not have been correctly coded or a medical condition may no longer be relevant (e.g. childhood asthma),’ he said.
He added that it was conscious some people would jump the queue, while others would be missed. But overall the algorithm was the quickest option.
If someone does get a vaccine letter and feels they are not at risk, they should still book an appointment.
More than 800 people are being vaccinated a day over the next three or four weeks and about 1,000 vaccine invitation letters are being sent out a day.
So far, more than 26,000 doses of vaccine have been given and a quarter of the adult population have had at least one.
