To monitor the COVID-19 pandemic we need better quality primary care data

​UK primary care coding of covid-19 is a mess: we need to stop the use of bad codes, and migrate from the use of ugly to good codes, but will only be able to do so when they are finally released . Key data computerised medical record (CMR) systems are recorded using ’codes’, to standardise recording and so attendances about a medical problem can be linked.1 At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic there was neither international agreement about nomenclature nor codes available in primary …