Hundreds of GPs across Britain have signed up to contribute daily reports on flu cases to a new database that will help the government to plan for medical care and vaccine supplies this winter.
As the Department of Health launched its annual campaign to encourage take up of free flu vaccinations for eligible groups, GP systems supplier EMIS announced that nearly 730 practices using the company’s systems are poised to send real-time data to QFLU, part of a non-profit making initiative run by an academic research team at Nottingham University in collaboration with EMIS.
The team will provide statistics to the Health Protection Agency on flu and pneumonia cases, antiviral prescriptions, GP and nurse consultations, hospital admissions and deaths. Eventually, it hopes to have around 1,000 EMIS practices reporting to the database, covering more than 75 per cent of primary care trusts across the country.
QFLU will automatically extract statistics for the previous 24 hours from practices each evening at around 10 pm. Only daily summary data by age and sex will be extracted, to protect patient confidentiality.
As part of the initiative, EMIS is providing a facility for practices to identify high-risk patients who need flu vaccination, based on guidance from the chief medical officer.
This year’s flu campaign – which has the message ‘If you knew about flu you’d get the jab’ – is aimed at the over 65s and parents of children aged over six months with asthma, diabetes or weakened immunity due to disease or treatment.
QFLU is part of QRESEARCH , which automatically collects real-time data from EMIS computer systems across the country, enabling researchers to quickly detect regional and national patterns of disease and other conditions.
Dr Julia Hippisley-Cox, professor of general practice at Nottingham University, said: “We are very grateful to the GPs who have signed up to provide this vital data, and we would invite others to join them. We hope that the information will help individual practices and PCTs to plan resources for their patients, as well as helping the government to plan on a national scale.”