Cover of Vaccination Evaluated Rapidly
A surveillance scheme to evaluate the childhood immunisation programme in England, collating data for children aged 1, 2 and 5.
About this standard
- Publisher
- NHS England
- Also known as
- COVER
- Reference code
- DAPB0089 Amd 80/2021
- Publication date
- 06/01/2022
- Status
- Active
Show definitions of statuses
Active. Active standards are stable, maintained and have been approved, assured or endorsed for use by qualified bodies.
Deprecated Deprecated standards are available for use and are maintained, but are being phased out, so new functionality will not be added.
Retired standards Retired standards are not being maintained or supported and should not be used.
- Standard type
- Collections
- Information standards
Show definitions of standard types
Collections. A Collection is a systematic gathering of a specified selection of data or information for a particular stated purpose from existing records held within health and care systems and electronic devices.
Extractions. An extraction is a type of collection that is pulled from an operational system by the data controller and transmitted to the receiver without additional processing or transcription by the sender.
Information standards. Information standards are agreed ways of doing something, written down as a set of precise criteria so they can be used as rules, guidelines, or definitions.
Technical Standards and specifications. Technical standards and specifications specify how to make information available technically including how the data is structured and transported.
- Contact point
Link to standard
- Documentation
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- Applies to
- All care providers operating Child Health Information Systems
- NHS England and NHS England local Teams
- Impacts on
- Implementation of this information standard impacts all health IT systems suppliers providing systems to the above providers; suppliers should work with their customers to determine necessary changes.
- Associated medias
- Conformance date
- 06/07/2022
- Effective from
- 06/01/2022
Topics and care settings
- Topic
- Child
- Data definitions and terminologies
- Vaccination
- Care setting
- GP / Primary care
Dependencies and related standards
- Dependencies
No known dependencies.
- Related standards
Review Information
- Scope
- Health Services, NHS Services
- Sponsor
Richard Gleave, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Operating Officer, UKHSA
- Senior Responsible Officer
Vanessa Saliba, Consultant Epidemiologist, UKHSA
- Business Lead
- Simon Burton, Epidemiological Data Analyst, UKHSA
- Approval date
- 21/12/2021
- Post Implementation review Date
- 01/07/2023
Legal basis and endorsements
- Legal authority
Section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
This information standard is published under section 250 of the Health and Social Care Act 2012
More information
This standard defines what information needs to be extracted from Child Health Information Systems (CHIS) to comply with the reporting requirements of the COVER (Cover of Vaccination Evaluated Rapidly) programme.
COVER measures vaccine coverage for each vaccine included in the routine childhood immunisation programme in England for children aged 3 months (BCG only), and one, two and five years of age.
Vaccine coverage data is extracted quarterly and annually from local CHIS which have been commissioned by NHS England and data is submitted to the NHS England Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS).
Local Authority (LA) coverage data is published as official statistics quarterly, by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA), and as national statistics annually by UKHSA and NHS England jointly. General Practice (GP) level data is published quarterly and annually by UKHSA for local performance management purposes.
Previous versions of the COVER information standard were owned and maintained by Public Health England. From October 2021, the UKHSA adopted the health protection responsibilities of PHE as that organisation ceased to exist. UKHSA is an executive agency of the Department of Health and Social Care and is responsible for planning, preventing and responding to external health threats, and providing intellectual, scientific and operational leadership at national and local level.
About this change
This release introduces several changes in in line with amendments to the routine immunisation schedule:
- addition of three new fields to capture data for Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccinations, including new data items for the number of BCG vaccinations at 3 months of age and the number of BCG-eligible babies at 3 and 12 months of age
- removal of 3 fields that are now redundant after the completed transition to new regimes.
Page last updated: 03 May 2024