@article {CurtisBJGP.2021.0376, author = {Helen J Curtis and Peter Inglesby and Caroline E Morton and Brian MacKenna and Amelia Green and William J Hulme and Alex J Walker and Jessica Morley and Amir Mehrkar and Seb Bacon and George Hickman and Chris Bates and Richard Croker and David Evans and Tom Ward and Jonathan Cockburn and Simon Davy and Krishnan Bhaskaran and Anna Schultze and Christopher T Rentsch and Elizabeth J Williamson and Anna Rowan and Helen McDonald and Louis Fisher and Laurie Tomlinson and Rohini Mathur and Henry Drysdale and Rosalind M Eggo and Kevin Wing and Angel YS Wong and Harriet Forbes and John Parry and Frank Hester and Sam Harper and Shaun O{\textquoteright}Hanlon and Alex Eavis and Richard Jarvis and Dima Avramov and Paul Griffiths and Aaron Fowles and Nasreen Parkes and Ian Douglas and Stephen JW Evans and Liam Smeeth and Ben Goldacre}, title = {Trends and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 vaccine recipients: a federated analysis of 57.9 million patients{\textquoteright} primary care records in situ using OpenSAFELY}, elocation-id = {BJGP.2021.0376}, year = {2021}, doi = {10.3399/BJGP.2021.0376}, publisher = {Royal College of General Practitioners}, abstract = {Background: On December 8th 2020 NHS England administered the first COVID-19 vaccination. Aim: Describe trends and variation in vaccine coverage by clinical and demographic groups. Design and Setting: With the approval of NHS England, we conducted a cohort study of 57.9 million patient records in general practice in England, in-situ and within the infrastructure of the Electronic Health Record (EHR) software vendors EMIS and TPP using OpenSAFELY. Method: We describe vaccine coverage across various subgroups of Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) priority cohorts. Results: 20,852,692 patients (36\%) received a vaccine between December 8th and March 17th 2021. Of patients aged >=80 not in a care home (JCVI group 2) 94.7\% received a vaccine, but with substantial variation by ethnicity (White 96.2\% vaccinated, Black 68.3\%) and deprivation (least deprived 96.6\%, most deprived 90.7\%). Patients with pre-existing medical conditions were more likely to be vaccinated with two exceptions: severe mental illness (89.5\% vaccinated) and learning disability (91.4\%). 275,205 vaccine recipients were identified as care home residents (priority group 1; 91.2\% coverage). 1,257,914 (6.0\%) recipients have had a second dose. Detailed characteristics of all cohorts are reported. Conclusion: The NHS in England has rapidly delivered mass vaccination. We deployed a data monitoring framework using publicly auditable methods and a secure, in-situ processing model, using linked but pseudonymised patient-level NHS data on 57.9 million patients. Targeted activity may be needed to address lower vaccination coverage observed among certain key groups.}, issn = {0960-1643}, URL = {https://bjgp.org/content/early/2021/09/24/BJGP.2021.0376}, eprint = {https://bjgp.org/content/early/2021/09/24/BJGP.2021.0376.full.pdf}, journal = {British Journal of General Practice} }