Your Patient Selection settings decide who Hippo will invite through a Recall Campaign.

The simplest way to think about it is:

🎯 Targets = who you're looking for
​⛔ Exclusions = who you want to leave out
​🔎 Filters = how you narrow that group further

Hippo then checks these rules against what each patient is currently due, so your eligible patient group can change as care is completed or new care becomes due.

For a patient to receive a recall, Hippo checks that they:

✅ Are currently due at least one of your selected targets
⛔ Aren't currently due any of your exclusions
👥 Match any age or vulnerable-group filters you've added
📅 Have reached their Hippo Eligible date

If they pass the campaign rules, they can be included in the next recall run.

Targets and exclusions are based on what the patient is due now, rather than simply which conditions they have.

For example:

A patient has diabetes and your campaign targets a diabetes annual review.

If their review is due, they can be picked up.

Once the relevant care has been completed, coded and synced to Hippo, they're no longer due that target.

This distinction becomes particularly important when using exclusions.

Targets are the clinical indicators you want the campaign to recall patients for.

For example, you might create a campaign targeting:

If a patient is due one of the selected targets and passes the rest of your campaign rules, they can be recalled.

You can use multiple targets within the same campaign.

How Hippo combines them depends on whether you've selected OR or AND.

OR is useful when you want one campaign to cover several related care needs.

For example:

Targets

With OR, Hippo can include:

✅ A patient due an asthma review
✅ A patient due a COPD review
✅ A patient due both

The patient only needs to be due one of the selected targets.

AND is useful when you only want to include patients who are due every target you've selected.

For example, if you select:

with AND, the patient must currently be due:

Asthma Target 1 AND Asthma Target 2 AND Flu

If they're only due two of the three, they won't be included.

This is useful when you're creating a campaign for patients who need a specific combination of care at the same time.

Exclusions are one of the most important parts of Patient Selection to understand.

An exclusion doesn't exclude everyone with that condition.

It excludes patients who are currently due the indicator you've selected as an exclusion.

You create a campaign targeting an asthma review and exclude a diabetes review.

Patient A

→ Excluded from the campaign

Patient B

→ Can still be included

Both patients may have diabetes. The difference is whether the excluded care is currently due.

A patient only needs to be due one of your excluded indicators to be removed from the campaign.

Patients who aren't due any of those exclusions are unaffected.

This is worth checking carefully if a campaign has lots of exclusions, as they can significantly reduce your eligible patient group.

Once you've chosen the clinical care you're targeting, you can narrow your patient group further using filters.

You can filter by:

Target or exclude:

Target or exclude:

For example:

Diabetes review + Age 80 and over + Exclude Palliative Care

would look for patients who are due the selected diabetes care, are aged 80+, and aren't identified as receiving palliative care.

Patients can sometimes meet the criteria for more than one Active campaign.

For example, you may have:

Campaign 1: Asthma Review
​Campaign 2: COPD Review

A patient currently due both could be eligible for both campaigns.

If you want separate pathways for:

you can use targets and exclusions to separate the groups.

Target: Asthma review
​Exclude: COPD review

→ Picks up patients currently due asthma but not COPD.

Target: COPD review
​Exclude: Asthma review

→ Picks up patients currently due COPD but not asthma.

Target: Asthma AND COPD

→ Picks up patients currently due both, so you can offer an appropriate appointment pathway for the combined review.

If the patient's COPD review has already been completed, they're no longer due both and can instead fall into the asthma-only campaign.

If you're creating a campaign for DOAC monitoring, you might select:

CrCl relies on recent weight and creatinine information, so a patient may initially be recalled for those checks before becoming due for the CrCl component.

For patients with CKD, you can also include the relevant CKD3 or CKD4/5 monitoring indicators.

You could configure:

Targets: The diabetes care processes your practice wants to recall for
​Age: Custom age range → Target 80+
​Vulnerable groups: Palliative Care → Exclude

This gives you a more focused group of older patients due diabetes care while excluding patients identified as receiving palliative care.

Check the Hippo Targets Glossary if you're unsure.

Once you've configured your campaign, Recall Preview is the easiest way to check that your targets, exclusions and filters are behaving as expected.

The Upcoming Recalls tab shows the patients currently due to be recalled by that campaign.

Use it to sense-check questions like:

You can also select the 👁️ icon to preview the message a patient would receive.

If you're wondering about one particular patient, use Check Patient Eligibility.

Enter their NHS number and Hippo will show which campaign rules they pass or fail.

This is particularly useful for questions like:

"Why isn't this patient appearing?"

or:

"Why has this patient been included?"

Nothing.

An exclusion only removes patients who are currently due that indicator. Everyone else continues through the campaign's other eligibility checks.

Check whether they're actually due the excluded care.

Having the diagnosis itself isn't enough. If that part of their care has already been completed or isn't due yet, the exclusion won't apply.

Campaign exclusions are based on Hippo's clinical indicators rather than diagnosis or medication lists alone.

For patient characteristics such as Learning Disabilities and Dementia, use the vulnerable-group filters in Patient Selection.

There isn't a direct "exclude anyone in Campaign B" setting.

Instead, use the other campaign's clinical targets as exclusions where appropriate, or consider whether the care could be managed together in a single campaign.

For some targets, like blood pressure and HbA1c control, having the check isn't enough. The result has to count. The usual reasons it doesn't:

📈 The result was above target. Blood pressure control targets need the latest reading in the last 12 months to be at or below the target for that indicator. For the QOF hypertension targets that's 140/90 in clinic (135/85 at home) for under-80s, and 150/90 (145/85 at home) for 80 and over. Other indicators can differ, e.g. CVD Prevention uses 130/80.

🔁 A newer reading replaced it. Hippo uses the latest reading. A later, higher clinic reading takes priority over an earlier good one.

🏠 It was a home reading that doesn't count. A home or self-reported reading needs both numbers and must meet the home target. That's 5 mmHg lower than the clinic target, e.g. 135/85 for under-80s.

🩺 The target is a review, not the reading. A hypertension review needs a review code. A blood pressure reading on its own won't complete it.

🏷️ It isn't coded the way the target counts it, e.g. it's recorded as free text.

🕚 It was recorded today. Hippo sends recalls at 11am using data from its overnight sync, so anything coded that morning won't be seen until tomorrow. If the check was more than a day ago, this isn't the reason.

When you're building Patient Selection, think:

🎯 Targets: What care am I trying to recall for?
​⛔ Exclusions: What other outstanding care should keep someone out of this campaign?
​🔎 Filters: Do I want to narrow the group by age or vulnerability?

Then use Recall Preview to check the result before relying on the campaign.