QSurveillance® National Surveillance System

This is a collaborative project between the Health Protection Agency (HPA) and the University of Nottingham Division of Primary Care to establish a national, primary care surveillance system.

The University of Nottingham and Egton Medical Information Systems Ltd (EMIS), a general practice computer systems supplier, have created QSurveillance®, a new, primary care-derived database that contains information on the health needs, risks, care and outcome for a population of approximately 20 million currently registered patients ( http://www.qresearch.org/). A nationally representative sample of over 3000 practices contributes the data.

This project is able to obtain timely primary care data that can be analysed to Strategic Health Authority and Primary Care Trust level. It can link morbidity data to prescribing and vaccination data.

Updated weekly

Data for a set of key indicators are presented in a weekly bulletin. The data for all indicators are monitored weekly, but the indicators presented in the bulletin will change according to the time of year or current activity. The indicators currently available for presentation in the bulletin are:

• Influenza-like illness and influenza-like illness with anti-virals prescribed
• Pneumonia and pneumonitis
• URTI
• LRTI
• Severe asthma
• Wheeze
• Vomiting
• Gastroenteritis
• Diarrhoea (and proportion treated with oral rehydration therapy)
• Diarrhoea in the under 5’s (and proportion treated with oral rehydration therapy)
• Chicken pox
• Herpes Zoster
• Pharyngitis or Scarlet Fever
• Mumps
• Measles
• Rubella
• Pertussis
• Conjunctivitis
• Cellulitis
• Impetigo
• Allergic rhinitis
• Heatstroke

Strategic work has also been undertaken on influenza and pneumococcal vaccine uptake by risk-group and social deprivation score; the diagnosis and treatment of STIs in general practice and consultation rates by at-risk groups during heatwaves (see Primary Care Publications).

The weekly bulletin Appendix contains data at Primary Care Trust (PCT) level for respiratory indicators derived from the QSurveillance® database. Currently data are presented using the PCT boundaries in existence prior to the reorganisation on 1 October 2006. Work is in progress to map the database to the new PCT boundaries.

The current Bulletin and Appendix are published weekly in the online Health Protection Report.