Respiratory syncytial virus campaign: Cohort identification methodology

NHS England’s Vaccination programme has commissioned NHS England’s Cohorting as a Service (CaaS) to provide patient identifiable cohorts, to facilitate the identification of citizens who are eligible for Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccination under the Green Book chapter 27a defined clinical at-risk group criteria.

CaaS will be providing the following cohorts: 

• aged 75 to 79 years old (cohort label: rsv_75to79) - Aged 75-79 at the point the eligible cohort is created/refreshed (same as previous campaign)
• turned 80 years old on or after 2nd September 2024 (cohort label: rsv_80_2024) - Turned 80 on or after 2nd September 2024. This is to ensure people originally eligible as part of the RSV catch-up remain eligible (same as previous campaign)
• aged 75 or over includes anybody aged 75 or over at the point the eligible cohort is created/refreshed (cohort label: rsv_75+) (New label)

The campaign will start on the 1 April 2026. CaaS will run the cohort on a daily schedule. The previous cohort labels will be retired 1 week following the start of the campaign and the new label will persist. It will be an ongoing/rolling campaign, there is no end date currently forecast.

Data set used is:

• Personal Demographics Service