November 2025 – EMIS Newsletter
Topics
A message from our team
Hello!
Welcome back to this month’s PCIT newsletter, it has been another busy month following attendance at the New Practice Manager Conference over in South Normanton and supporting practices in person with utilising our tools. Read below for how we’ve updated our CQC Navigator and let us know if you’re wanting to support in testing our Social Prescribing Link Worker template!
Best Wishes,
James (Customer Experience Manager)
Welcome back to this month’s PCIT newsletter, it has been another busy month following attendance at the New Practice Manager Conference over in South Normanton and supporting practices in person with utilising our tools. Read below for how we’ve updated our CQC Navigator and let us know if you’re wanting to support in testing our Social Prescribing Link Worker template!
Best Wishes,
James (Customer Experience Manager)
PCIT Updates
👨🏻⚕️ “Other healthcare provider” codes
Earlier in 2025 the NHS deactivated most “other healthcare provider” codes. We are often asked how vaccinations given elsewhere should be recorded.
All CQRS vaccination services now look for the GMS flag to confirm that the vaccination was given by the Practice. It is important that clinicians giving vaccinations know to mark a vaccination as “GMS” to ensure payment, and for any staff recording vaccinations given elsewhere to use “Not GMS”.
Vaccinations given elsewhere should still have important information and location recorded against them.
All CQRS vaccination services now look for the GMS flag to confirm that the vaccination was given by the Practice. It is important that clinicians giving vaccinations know to mark a vaccination as “GMS” to ensure payment, and for any staff recording vaccinations given elsewhere to use “Not GMS”.
Vaccinations given elsewhere should still have important information and location recorded against them.
🤝 New Practice Manager Conference
This month we attended the “New Practice Manager Conference” over in South Normanton. Vanessa, our Customer Service Manager, was there speaking with lots of new Practice Managers looking for new solutions to adopt with their practice.
It was great to speak to so many new people within the Practice Management space!
We look forward to speaking with more of you at future conferences in 2026!
It was great to speak to so many new people within the Practice Management space!
We look forward to speaking with more of you at future conferences in 2026!
🚨 IMPORTANT – Changes to the Childhood Vaccination Schedule from 1st January 2026
The next stage in the 2025/26 changes to the Childhood Vaccination Schedule takes effect on 1st January 2026. We would like to reassure customers that changes to resources are being finalised and will be deployed in December. The template changes will be deployed at the very end of December to avoid any risk of patients being vaccinated outside the current schedule. There is no need to submit tickets to support asking for these changes or whether PCIT is aware of them, all customers will be included in the deployment.
Watch this space for further updates during December!
Watch this space for further updates during December!
📝 COPD Register Update
We previously shared information about a change to the COPD register, affecting all clinical systems, which unexpectedly brought additional patients onto the register due to having a code for COPD review on their medical record. The NHS clinical terminology team has now removed the codes meaning registers have returned to their usual size. Longstanding searches for recall or Local Enhanced Services relating to COPD should no longer identify additional patients without a COPD diagnosis.
💊 Seasonal Influenza
Last month we updated the 016D “Seasonal influenza vaccination monthly breakdown summary report” to include information on manufacturer, batch number and GMS flag. Some customers have highlighted that this produced a much longer aggregate report for them and it was harder to see the totals. Please note that the report creates a new line for each variation you have on manufacturer/batch number information so it will be longer if the team are not always using a protocol to ensure consistency of data entry – turns out there are a surprising number of ways to type AstraZeneca.
To use this report for your FP34D/PPA claim we would recommend exporting it to excel so you can check and merge lines which are clearly referring to the same batch number. It may highlight if you have any problems with patients vaccinated but no batch number recorded and this may need to be actioned for clinical safety once reviewed to check this is definitely a vaccine given in practice. In Excel it is also easier to remove the lines for vaccinations given by other organisations and then total up each row as appropriate to identify the total number given of any one vaccine.
Not sure how to export EMIS reports into Excel – check out our handy support article.
To use this report for your FP34D/PPA claim we would recommend exporting it to excel so you can check and merge lines which are clearly referring to the same batch number. It may highlight if you have any problems with patients vaccinated but no batch number recorded and this may need to be actioned for clinical safety once reviewed to check this is definitely a vaccine given in practice. In Excel it is also easier to remove the lines for vaccinations given by other organisations and then total up each row as appropriate to identify the total number given of any one vaccine.
Not sure how to export EMIS reports into Excel – check out our handy support article.
🌡️ Shingles Vaccination
A reminder that our invitation searches in 034B were updated in August to reflect the changes to the Shingles Vaccination programme from 1st September 2023. The new immunocompromised age group of 18-49 is now included in all of our immunocompromised searches in the overall age range of 18+
Everybody should be aware that immunocompromised patients remain eligible for life. This means it is possible for a patient over the age of 80 to appear in searches for invitation. Clinically review these patients to confirm eligibility but do not overlook these patients simply because they are over 80.
This month we have seen a number of queries about patients appearing on a list for a shingles vaccination invitation only to discover they were already vaccinated with a single dose vaccine when patient reports this or presents for an appointment. We do find most of the time this is related to the change to the shingles vaccination programme in 2023 which involved a change to the coding for both the old Zostavax vaccine and the new Shingrix vaccine. We do cover this in our support article Changes to shingles vaccine programme 2023 and in the main support article for 034B 034B Eligible for shingles vaccination searches so please have a look at this and especially the section about using our Data Admin searches to help identify records that may need amending prior to sending out invitations.
Everybody should be aware that immunocompromised patients remain eligible for life. This means it is possible for a patient over the age of 80 to appear in searches for invitation. Clinically review these patients to confirm eligibility but do not overlook these patients simply because they are over 80.
This month we have seen a number of queries about patients appearing on a list for a shingles vaccination invitation only to discover they were already vaccinated with a single dose vaccine when patient reports this or presents for an appointment. We do find most of the time this is related to the change to the shingles vaccination programme in 2023 which involved a change to the coding for both the old Zostavax vaccine and the new Shingrix vaccine. We do cover this in our support article Changes to shingles vaccine programme 2023 and in the main support article for 034B 034B Eligible for shingles vaccination searches so please have a look at this and especially the section about using our Data Admin searches to help identify records that may need amending prior to sending out invitations.
🦠 Pneumococcal Vaccination
Another vaccination tip following recent queries – at the moment the pneumococcal vaccination for adults is the PPV vaccination while the PCV vaccination is given to infants under 2. If you have adults appearing on the recall list who report that they have already had a pneumo vaccination as an adult we would recommend checking that the correct vaccination code has been used.
We have therefore added a Data Quality search for patients who have been coded with the PCV vaccination as adults potentially in error.
📚 For more information about this, read our support guide below.
We have therefore added a Data Quality search for patients who have been coded with the PCV vaccination as adults potentially in error.
📚 For more information about this, read our support guide below.
⚙️ Optional Handy Protocol Change (Reminder)
We have made a change to the way we offer our Handy Protocols to practices. Sites can now access the full list of optional HPs by going to Resource Publisher > Shared Folders > Primary Care IT Limited > (3A) Published Global Resources > Handy Protocols > Optional and choose which ones they want to move from inactive to active (therefore setting them as a live resource). Our Handy Protocols come with pre-set triggers but you can adjust locally as required.
📚 For further details on our Handy Protocols, read our support guide below.
📚 For further details on our Handy Protocols, read our support guide below.
🚨 Don’t forget that QRISK 3 is available for PCIT customers* to be able to use within EMIS Web!
This year we released our calculator which means clinicians will be able to calculate a QRISK3 score within a clinical system with the result being recorded directly in the record.
This functionality has been built into:
🔵 OneCalculator
🔵 Lipid checking protocol (HP015)
🔵 OneTemplate NonPrescriber in the NHS Health Check page (for those eligible)
Primary Care IT would like to again thank Dr David Stables for input during our development of this important tool.
🎥 Launch video: https://vimeo.com/1052598629/a58c8c8957
📚 Read the full support guide: https://support.primarycareit.co.uk/portal/en-gb/kb/articles/tm00202
*Only for customers on the Primary Care IT RP sharing group.
This functionality has been built into:
🔵 OneCalculator
🔵 Lipid checking protocol (HP015)
🔵 OneTemplate NonPrescriber in the NHS Health Check page (for those eligible)
Primary Care IT would like to again thank Dr David Stables for input during our development of this important tool.
🎥 Launch video: https://vimeo.com/1052598629/a58c8c8957
📚 Read the full support guide: https://support.primarycareit.co.uk/portal/en-gb/kb/articles/tm00202
*Only for customers on the Primary Care IT RP sharing group.
Resource Releases & Updates
🏆 CQC Navigator Resource Update
Primary Care IT have updated your CQC searches, found in folder 032 and the CQC alert, with changes reflecting the new requirements for bisphosphonate monitoring when prescribed for 5+ years, and DOAC monitoring frequency, following changes to NICE and CQC guidelines earlier in the year.
A selection of data quality improvements have been made to the reports too.
📚 For further details, please see our support guide below.
A selection of data quality improvements have been made to the reports too.
📚 For further details, please see our support guide below.
🔍 November Search Rollout Summary
This month we’re rolling out changes to 1 of our folders, this folder is:
🔵001 CQRS
📚 For full details and previous months, please see our search change log.
🔵001 CQRS
📚 For full details and previous months, please see our search change log.
👫 New Social Prescribing Link Worker template – Request for testers
Primary Care IT are releasing a draft version of a new Social Prescribing Link Worker template, aimed at helping Social Prescribers with recording referrals and all aspects of writing care plans.
We are looking for some proactive surgeries or PCNs to help us test the template during daily use, and provide us any feedback (positive or negative) before the template is released to all PCIT customers.
Please raise a ticket to state your interest if you would like to assist with feedback.
We are looking for some proactive surgeries or PCNs to help us test the template during daily use, and provide us any feedback (positive or negative) before the template is released to all PCIT customers.
Please raise a ticket to state your interest if you would like to assist with feedback.
🚨 NEW First Contact Physiotherapist template and changes to existing template
We are releasing a new First Contact Physiotherapist template, aimed at helping Physiotherapists with recording assessments and onward referrals as well as essential minor surgery codes. The template aims to be more comprehensive than the OneTemplate Additional Roles.
Please raise a ticket to state your interest if you would like receive this template prior to wider release.
In addition to releasing this new template, the Physiotherapist page of the OneTemplate Additional Roles has been refreshed.
🔵 Minor surgery injection code and consent for procedure code removed due to feedback that consent was often forgotten, and needed a better way of flagging. The team decided customers should be directed to OneProcedure or the new “OneTemplate First Contact Physiotherapist”, where there is extensive minor surgery pages.
🔵Red flag codes moved into their own dedicated section below Assessment and expanded on.
🔵Referral section moved to the end of page and reworded “secondary care referral” to “onward referral”
🔵PCSP agreed code added to “impression and management” section
🔵”Presenting status” section renamed to “appointment admin”, a diary entry has been added and generic “follow-up” codes have been replaced with “physiotherapy follow-up” codes.
Please raise a ticket to state your interest if you would like receive this template prior to wider release.
In addition to releasing this new template, the Physiotherapist page of the OneTemplate Additional Roles has been refreshed.
🔵 Minor surgery injection code and consent for procedure code removed due to feedback that consent was often forgotten, and needed a better way of flagging. The team decided customers should be directed to OneProcedure or the new “OneTemplate First Contact Physiotherapist”, where there is extensive minor surgery pages.
🔵Red flag codes moved into their own dedicated section below Assessment and expanded on.
🔵Referral section moved to the end of page and reworded “secondary care referral” to “onward referral”
🔵PCSP agreed code added to “impression and management” section
🔵”Presenting status” section renamed to “appointment admin”, a diary entry has been added and generic “follow-up” codes have been replaced with “physiotherapy follow-up” codes.
FAQs, Training & more
Wanting to use our searches?
We have a full suite of searches available for practice use. You can find your current searches readily installed in your system by going to Population Reporting & opening the “Primary Care IT” folder.
It’s important to note we go into practice systems and update these as frequently as possible. For further information on our searches, click here. See our guide to know the latest changes to our searches here.
Queries about CQC Navigator?
CQC inspection teams use a set of searches which have been designed to help them to understand how a Practice manages their patient population, and to identify clinical situations which should not be happening. To support with this,
Primary Care IT has adapted these searches to help practices understand what might need to be addressed before
a CQC inspector finds it.
We recommend checking our CQC Navigator FAQ guide here. If you have any questions after reading the article, please raise a ticket with us for support.
How do I raise a support ticket?
If you ever need to contact us for support, the best way to reach us is by creating a support ticket, you can do this here. These tickets are triaged internally and passed to the relevant member of our team to ensure your request or question is answered to the best of our ability. You can always chase the progress of your support tickets by calling our office (0333 344 3678) and providing your ticket reference number.
We have a full suite of searches available for practice use. You can find your current searches readily installed in your system by going to Population Reporting & opening the “Primary Care IT” folder.
It’s important to note we go into practice systems and update these as frequently as possible. For further information on our searches, click here. See our guide to know the latest changes to our searches here.
Queries about CQC Navigator?
CQC inspection teams use a set of searches which have been designed to help them to understand how a Practice manages their patient population, and to identify clinical situations which should not be happening. To support with this,
Primary Care IT has adapted these searches to help practices understand what might need to be addressed before
a CQC inspector finds it.
We recommend checking our CQC Navigator FAQ guide here. If you have any questions after reading the article, please raise a ticket with us for support.
How do I raise a support ticket?
If you ever need to contact us for support, the best way to reach us is by creating a support ticket, you can do this here. These tickets are triaged internally and passed to the relevant member of our team to ensure your request or question is answered to the best of our ability. You can always chase the progress of your support tickets by calling our office (0333 344 3678) and providing your ticket reference number.