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beta.core schema🔗

Available on backends: TPP, EMIS

This schema defines the core tables and columns which should be available in any backend providing primary care data, allowing dataset definitions written using this schema to run across multiple backends.

Warning

This schema is still a work-in-progress while the EMIS backend remains under development. Projects requiring EMIS data should continue to use the Cohort Extractor tool.

To use this schema in an ehrQL file:
from ehrql.tables.beta.core import (
    clinical_events,
    medications,
    ons_deaths,
    patients,
)

many rows per patient

clinical_events🔗

Columns
date 🔗 date
snomedct_code 🔗 SNOMED-CT code
numeric_value 🔗 float

many rows per patient

medications🔗

Columns
date 🔗 date
dmd_code 🔗 dm+d code

many rows per patient

ons_deaths🔗

Columns
date 🔗 date

Patient's date of death. Only deaths registered from February 2019 are recorded.

place 🔗 string
  • Possible values: Care Home, Elsewhere, Home, Hospice, Hospital, Other communal establishment
underlying_cause_of_death 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_01 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_02 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_03 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_04 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_05 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_06 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_07 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_08 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_09 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_10 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_11 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_12 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_13 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_14 🔗 ICD-10 code
cause_of_death_15 🔗 ICD-10 code

one row per patient

patients🔗

Patients in primary care.

Representativeness🔗

You can find out more about the representativeness of these data in the OpenSAFELY-TPP backend in:

The OpenSAFELY Collaborative, Colm D. Andrews, Anna Schultze, Helen J. Curtis, William J. Hulme, John Tazare, Stephen J. W. Evans, et al. 2022. "OpenSAFELY: Representativeness of Electronic Health Record Platform OpenSAFELY-TPP Data Compared to the Population of England." Wellcome Open Res 2022, 7:191. https://doi.org/10.12688/wellcomeopenres.18010.1

Orphan records🔗

If a practice becomes aware that a patient has moved house, then the practice deducts, or removes, the patient's records from their register. If the patient doesn't register with a new practice within a given amount of time (normally from four to eight weeks), then the patient's records are permanently deducted and are orphan records. There are roughly 1.6 million orphan records.

Columns
date_of_birth 🔗 date

Patient's date of birth.

  • Always the first day of a month
  • Never NULL
sex 🔗 string

Patient's sex.

  • Possible values: female, male, intersex, unknown
  • Never NULL
date_of_death 🔗 date

Patient's date of death.

Methods
age_on(date) 🔗

Patient's age as an integer, in whole elapsed calendar years, as it would be on the given date.

This method takes no account of whether the patient is alive on the given date. In particular, it may return negative values if the given date is before the patient's date of birth.

View method definition 
return (date - patients.date_of_birth).years