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We are changing how often we publish our influenza and RSV data. From 29 May, we will update metrics for both influenza and RSV every 2 weeks instead of weekly. We will resume weekly updates in October this year.

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Scarlet fever GP in-hours weekly consultation rate

Last updated on Thursday, 17 April 2025 at 03:28pm

Summary

Topic
Scarlet-fever
Category
syndromic
API name
scarlet-fever_syndromic_consultationRateByWeek

Rationale

Monitoring trends in weekly GP in-hours consultation rates can highlight the most recent activity in scarlet fever cases.

Definition

The metric reports the weekly GP in-hours consultation rate per 100,000 people, for scarlet fever at participating GP practices in England.

Methodology

Scarlet fever is identified from the diagnoses recorded during GP in-hours consultations. The diagnoses are based on signs and or symptoms and may not be lab confirmed.

The data presented are based on a sentinel syndromic surveillance system, not all GP practices in England are included. We receive an automated feed of anonymised GP in-hours consultation data from participating practices from 2 sources: The Phoenix Partnership (TPP) and Oxford Royal College of General Practitioners Clinical Informatics Digital Hub (ORCHID).

Caveats

Changes to national advice and guidance on access to healthcare services means trends should be treated with caution. The COVID-19 pandemic also involved updates and changes to service provision.

Not all GP practices in England are included in the data and coverage varies by location.

The weekly rates presented differ from the daily rates reported in the Syndromic Surveillance data.

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