Department for Health and Social Care and NHS Digital: QCovid algorithm
The QCovid team piloted the standard with a COVID-19 clinical tool used to predict how at risk individuals might be from COVID-19.
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The aim of the clinical tool is to create a way of predicting how at-risk individuals might be from coronavirus. The tool was developed for use by clinicians in support of conversations with patients about personal risk.
The tool utilises algorithms developed by the University of Oxford, called QCovid. These combine a number of factors such as age, sex, ethnicity, height and weight (to calculate BMI), and specific health conditions and treatments in order to estimate the combined risk of catching coronavirus and being hospitalised or catching coronavirus and dying.
More information is available at COVID-19 Clinical Risk Assessment Tool.
The original version of the QCovid algorithms were also used as part of the Population Risk Assessment to add patients to the Shielded Patient List in February 2021. These patients were advised to shield at that time were provided support for doing so, and were prioritised for COVID-19 vaccination. The Shielded Patient List has since been closed.
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