Select People for Invitation (SPI)

The Select People for Invitation (SPI) service helps NHS organisations run communication campaigns that target the right people at the right time. It brings together national data, trusted communication channels, and user-defined rules that can be tailored to campaign needs – all in one place. 

SPI uses rules to include or exclude people based on factors such as age, location, clinical status, or care setting. For example, you can exclude people who have already booked an appointment, or those receiving care via other routes such as a care home. 

Users can set up campaigns to invite people to book appointments or raise awareness of NHS services. SPI works by combining key NHS England systems, including Cohorting as a Service (CaaS) and NHS Notify, to:  

• identify people who meet certain criteria, such as age, health condition, or location
• apply rules to exclude certain groups, such as people in care homes who receive services in another way
• plan and specify when communications are sent
• send communications using multiple channels – NHS App, email, SMS or letter
• support accessible formats, including translated content, British Sign Language (BSL) and Braille 

By using assured national data and avoiding duplicate or misdirected messages, SPI helps reduce NHS costs and increase uptake of services. 

Before you can use the Select People for Invitation (SPI) service, your team will go through a short onboarding process supported by the SPI team. 

We’ll help you to:  

• confirm your legal basis for accessing and using the data
• define the cohorts (groups of people) you want to target
• agree local business rules and exclusions
• set up message templates tailored to your service and audience
• ensure your team has the right access and permissions
• understand how SPI works with systems like CaaS and NHS Notify
• work through the information governance (IG), assurance and clinical considerations needed to use SPI 

We’ll also talk you through timelines, what support is available, and what’s needed from your team to get started. This ensures you’re set up for secure, effective campaign delivery from day one.

Select People for Invitation (SPI) is suitable for: 

• regional and local NHS organisations
• NHS teams running targeted health campaigns 

You do not need technical skills or system integration to use the service.  

NHS England’s select and invite team manages SPI and will support you throughout setup and delivery. 

Select People for Invitation (SPI) uses trusted national NHS data to identify and contact the right people for campaigns.

The service brings together data from vaccination events, Cohorting as a Service (CaaS), the Personal Demographics Service (PDS), and other approved sources to:

• identify people according to their vaccination status

• identify people based on criteria such as age, health condition or location

• apply exclusion rules, such as people in care homes or detained estates

• tailor messaging by communication needs, such as language preference or accessible formats

• identify when the last communication was sent to tailor messaging based on the last contact type

Scope and quality of records

Select People for Invitation (SPI) does not hold or process any Personal Identifiable Data (PID). It’s used to define your cohort and campaign settings. This information is then processed separately to create a file that NHS Notify uses to send messages securely to the right people. 

SPI uses high-quality national data that is regularly updated and validated against PDS. This helps to ensure accurate targeting, minimise duplication, and supports data compliance.

Cohorts generated by CaaS can be tailored using inclusion and exclusion rules such as:

• age and gender

• clinical or eligibility status, where available

• postcode or GP registration

• language and communication preferences

Data limitations

Select People for Invitation (SPI) may not support every eligibility scenario. For example, it cannot identify individuals based on occupation or pregnancy status.

Business rules help manage edge cases, including:

• individuals who have already booked or opted out

• scenarios where the next invitation is not due

• cases where contact details are missing

Where needed, alternative data sources may be used, but only in exceptional, approved cases.

Select People for Invitation (SPI) is an optional service available to eligible NHS England services. You do not need to integrate it into your existing systems. 

1. Request the service: An NHS organisation or service contacts the SPI team to request access. Your team will go through a short onboarding process supported by the SPI team. You can read more about the onboarding process in the section above. Secure access to SPI is managed through NHS Care Identity Service 2 (NHS CIS2) authentication, so users will need a smartcard, security key, Windows Hello or the iPad App to log in. For a detailed overview of CIS2 and how it works, visit the Services using NHS CIS2 Authentication page. 

2. Set up campaign details: You define who to contact, who to exclude, and how to send messages, including the order of channels, for example, NHS App first, then SMS. If your team does not have capacity to run the campaign, the SPI team can run it on your behalf. We’ll work with you to agree the cohort, business rules and message content. 

3. Use message templates: You can provide your own message templates for your campaign. The SPI team will work with you to make sure the messages are accurate, accessible, and ready to send. Templates can be personalised for your campaign, for example, directing people to a local GP practice or community pharmacy.

4. Define the base cohort: Cohorting as a Service (CaaS) identifies people who match the criteria you’ve chosen, such as age or health condition. 

5. Refine the cohort instantly: SPI lets you filter and refine your base cohort directly in the system. You can apply extra filters such as age, location, or communication preference, helping you control who to invite, when, and how. You can also split your cohort into different groups and tailor the messaging or communication channels for each one. For example, you could send an SMS to one group and an NHS App notification to another, or adjust the message wording to reflect local services. This gives you more flexibility to target people in the right way and speed up campaign delivery.

6. Apply rules: You can select and apply rules from SPI’s rule library to define who will receive communications, making it easy to target the right people. Common rules exclude or include groups such as: 

• people in care homes or detained estates 
• those who have already booked or opted out of specific services 

You can also use data filters like age, gender, location, language preference, or communication needs (such as Braille or large print) to tailor your campaign, ensuring your messages reach the right people, avoiding duplicates and respecting individual preferences. 

7. Review and approve your campaign: Once you’ve set up the campaign and communications, SPI generates a summary report. This includes a view of who will be invited and the impact of the rules you’ve applied, for example, how many people meet the criteria. You can then review this information to make sure it aligns with your campaign goals and downstream service capacity. 

At this stage, you can: 

• approve the campaign and send it to NHS Notify for delivery
• reject it and adjust your criteria, rules or message content before sending for review again 

This helps you to target the right people and ensures that the volume of messages is manageable and appropriate across all relevant areas. 

8. Send messages: NHS Notify sends messages securely, using data transferred via MESH and validated against the Personal Demographics Service (PDS). You can control how quickly messages go out by adjusting the volume sent each day – helping you manage the daily send rate and spread delivery across several days if needed.

9. Track performance: The organisation or service receives data to review how the campaign performed – for example, how many messages were sent, failed, delivered, and opened in the NHS App.

You can use the Select People for Invitation (SPI) service to: 

• contact people to book an appointment or remind those who haven’t responded to a previous invitation
• raise awareness of a service for people with a defined set of criteria, such as postcode or condition 
• test a campaign before sending it live, to check for issues or errors    
• estimate the cost of a campaign before delivery
• send personalised invites in different languages to groups with lower uptake, based on language preferences or local area needs
• inform targeted groups about local services, like roving clinics offering vaccinations and screening in one visit

Case examples: 

• a national programme team runs a reminder campaign for people who haven't yet booked their COVID-19 vaccination
• an ICB tests a targeted flu awareness campaign to check message volumes and spot any errors before sending it live
• an NHS team rapidly targets people at risk during a local measles outbreak
• an ICB sends personalised invitations in multiple languages to people in areas with low vaccine uptake, based on language preferences
• a regional team notifies a target cohort about a roving service offering screenings
• a local NHS team invites eligible people to book an NHS health check based on age and risk factors
• a health team sends messages about talking therapies support to younger adults in high-need postcodes
• a communications team sends awareness information about a specific vaccination or service to inform the public of its availability and benefits

Select People for Invitation (SPI) is a live NHS England service. 

It operates as a bronze service which means it is supported between 8am and 6pm, Monday to Friday excluding bank holidays.

Usage so far:

• over 168 million invitations sent via NHS Notify – the majority through digital channels like the NHS App and email
• over 8 major national campaigns delivered to date, including COVID-19, Flu, RSV and MMR
• local campaigns include a measles outbreak and a targeted RSV campaign delivered through community pharmacies

To access the Select People for Invitation (SPI) service, contact [email protected] to register your interest. We’ll support you through onboarding and campaign planning. 

The following table shows how to contact us about this service.

The following services are related to Select People for Invitation (SPI):