NHS England COVID-19 datasets

Last modified: 19 Mar 2026

The COVID-19 datasets cover vaccinations, tests and hospitalisations.

Timeline for COVID-19 relevant events in the UK:

This timeline illustrates the progress of the pandemic in the UK, alongside policy measures, national and international events, and key milestones for population studies such as the approval of vaccines and wider events that impacted on public awareness and trust.

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The graphic was developed as part of work led by the ALSPAC (University of Bristol) and Generation Scotland (University of Edinburgh) studies and funded by the Wellcome Trust funded “Longitudinal Population Study Covid-19 Steering Group and Secretariat” as a Strategic Support Science Grant - 221574/Z/20/Z award. Thanks to ALSPAC and Generation Scotland staff and all the wider individuals and studies that helped to contribute to its production. Please see https://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/covid-19/wellcome-covid-19/ for more details.

Summary:

• UK LLC holds six NHS England COVID-19 datasets: COVID-19 First Positives (Second Generation Surveillance System) (COVIDSGSS), COVID-19 UK Non-hospital Antibody Testing Results (Pillar 3) (IELISA), COVID-19 UK Non-hospital Antigen Testing Results (Pillar 2) (NPEX), COVID-19 Hospitalisation in England Surveillance System (CHESS), COVID-19 Vaccination Status (CVS) and COVID-19 Vaccination Adverse Reactions (CVAR).
  

• Researchers are permitted access to the COVID-19 datasets under a specific term set by NHS England: Research must be related to COVID-19. For examples of research purposes acceptable to NHS England see the COVID-19 Public Health Directions 2020
  

• The datasets span 2020 onwards, although most are now retired.
  

• Primarily, SNOMED codes are used in the COVID-19 datasets. See the Coded variables guide for further details. NHS England introduced new dm+d and SNOMED codes during the COVID-19 pandemic, which were mapped to the World Health Organization’s Emergency use ICD codes for COVID-19 disease outbreak
  

Overview of COVID-19 datasets

For further information see the individual dataset guides.

Table 1 Names, geographical coverage and availability of COVID-19 datasets in the UK LLC TRE ((the datasets in italics are retired)

Dataset	Dataset name	Other name	Grouping	Coverage	Data available in TRE
COVIDSGSS	COVID-19 Second Generation Surveillance System	N/A	Testing (Pillars 1, 2, 41)	England	04/2020 to 02/2024
IELISA	COVID-19 UK Non-hospital Antibody Testing Results (Pillar 3)	Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay	Testing (Pillars 3, 41)	UK	09/2020 to 04/2022
NPEX	COVID-19 UK Non-hospital Antigen Testing Results (Pillar 2)	National Pathology Exchange	Testing (Pillars 2, 41)	UK	04/2020 onwards
CHESS	COVID-19 Hospitalisation in England Surveillance System	Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI-Watch) surveillance system	Hospital	England	03/2020 to 10/2022
CVS	COVID-19 Vaccination Status	N/A	Vaccination	England	12/2020 onwards
CVAR	COVID-19 Vaccination Adverse Reactions	N/A	Vaccination	England	12/2020 to 01/2023

¹As explained in the DHSC’s COVID-19 Scaling up our testing programmes, four pillars comprised the UK government’s approach to testing for SARS-CoV-2. Pillar 1 quantified the number of people with a clinical need, and health and care workers, who returned positive swab (antigen) tests (processed in PHE labs and NHS hospitals). Pillar 2 quantified the number of people in the wider community who returned positive swab (antigen) tests (processed in commercial labs). Pillar 3 quantified the number of people who returned positive serology (antibody) tests to detect immunity and to understand the efficacy of the different testing methods. Pillar 4 quantified the number of people who returned positive serology (antibody) and swab (antigen) tests to detect immunity and to understand the efficacy of the different testing methods. For further details see the DHSC’s COVID-19 testing data: methodology note