Seb Bacon
Chief Technical Officer
Seb Bacon is a manager, analyst, and programmer with a lifelong interest in “civic tech”. He is responsible for all the the software-related outputs of the Bennett Institute. Prior to the Bennett Institute, he was CTO at OpenCorporates, creating the largest open database of corporate data in the world. Elsewhere, he has been responsible for the design and deployment of the international Freedom of Information software, Alaveteli; and was founder of Democracy Club, an organisation dedicated to transparency in the operation of UK elections.
Papers by Seb Bacon
- The impact of COVID-19 on azathioprine, leflunomide and methotrexate monitoring, and factors associated with change in monitoring rate
- The impact of COVID-19 on medication reviews in English primary care
- Comparative safety and effectiveness of Pfizer BA.4-5 versus Sanofi during the spring 2023 COVID-19 booster vaccination programme in England: a matched cohort study in OpenSAFELY-TPP
- Changes in opioid prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic in England: cohort study of 20 million patients in OpenSAFELY-TPP
- OpenSAFELY: Measuring BMI in 22 million patients in England
- OpenSAFELY: a platform for analysing electronic health records designed for reproducible research
- Trends in inequalities in avoidable hospitalisations across the COVID-19 pandemic: a cohort study of 23.5 million people in England
- Educational interventions delivered to prescribing advisers to influence primary care prescribing: a very low-cost pragmatic randomised trial using routine data from OpenPrescribing.net
- Ursodeoxycholic acid and severe COVID-19 outcomes in people with liver disease
- Impact of COVID-19 on mental illness in vaccinated and unvaccinated people
- Clinical and health inequality risk factors for non-COVID-related sepsis during the global COVID-19 pandemic
- Consistency, completeness and external validity of ethnicity recording in NHS primary care records
- Interpreting pathology test result values with comparators (<, >) in Electronic Health Records research
- Antibiotics for Common Infections in Primary Care Before, During and after the COVID-19 Pandemic and Extent of Risk-Based Prescribing: Need for Personalised Guidelines
- Group A streptococcal cases and treatments during the COVID-19 pandemic and 2022 outbreak
- The impact of COVID-19 on medication reviews in English primary care
- The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the treatment of common infections in primary care and the change to antibiotic prescribing in England
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antipsychotic prescribing in individuals with autism, dementia, learning disability, serious mental illness or living in a care home
- Fit notes associated with COVID-19 in 24 million patients’ primary care records
- Effect of the 2022 COVID-19 booster vaccination campaign in 50 year olds in England
- Challenges in Estimating the Effectiveness of 2 Doses of COVID-19 Vaccine Beyond 6 Months in England
- Impact of COVID-19 on recorded blood pressure screening and hypertension management in England
- Eleven key measures for monitoring general practice clinical activity during COVID-19
- Evaluation of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on hospital admission related to common infections
- Repeated antibiotic exposure and risk of hospitalisation and death following COVID-19 infection
- Data-driven identification of potentially successful intervention implementations: a proof of concept using five years of opioid prescribing data from over 7000 practices in England
- Patient Characteristics Associated with Repeat Antibiotic Prescribing Pre- and during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Changes in medication safety indicators in England throughout the covid-19 pandemic using OpenSAFELY
- Impact of COVID-19 on broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing for common infections in primary care in England
- The impact of COVID-19 on antibiotic prescribing in primary care in England
- Challenges in Estimating the Effectiveness of COVID-19 Vaccination Using Observational Data
- Changes in COVID-19-related mortality across key demographic and clinical subgroups in England from 2020 to 2022
- Data-Driven Identification of Unusual Prescribing Behavior: Analysis and Use of an Interactive Data Tool Using 6 Months of Primary Care Data From 6500 Practices in England
- Postoperative mortality and complications in patients with and without pre-operative SARS-CoV-2 infection
- Comparative effectiveness of BNT162b2 versus mRNA-1273 covid-19 vaccine boosting in England
- First dose COVID-19 vaccine coverage amongst adolescents and children in England
- Trends, variation, and clinical characteristics of recipients of antiviral drugs and neutralising monoclonal antibodies for covid-19 in community settings
- OpenSAFELY NHS Service Restoration Observatory 2
- Primary care coding activity related to the use of online consultation systems or remote consulting
- Challenges in estimating waning effectiveness of two doses of BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 COVID-19 vaccines beyond six months
- Identifying Patterns of Clinical Interest in Clinicians' Treatment Preferences: Hypothesis-free Data Science Approach to Prioritizing Prescribing Outliers for Clinical Review
- Comparative effectiveness of sotrovimab and molnupiravir for prevention of severe covid-19 outcomes in patients in the community
- Recording of ‘COVID-19 vaccine declined’
- Association between household composition and severe COVID-19 outcomes in older people by ethnicity
- Waning effectiveness of BNT162b2 and ChAdOx1 covid-19 vaccines over six months since second dose
- Comparative effectiveness of ChAdOx1 versus BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccines in Health and Social Care workers in England
- Representativeness of electronic health record platform OpenSAFELY-TPP data compared to the population of England
- Describing the population experiencing COVID-19 vaccine breakthrough following second vaccination in England
- Association between oral anticoagulants and COVID-19-related outcomes
- Risk of severe COVID-19 outcomes associated with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases and immune modifying therapies
- Effectiveness of BNT162b2 booster doses in England
- Safety of COVID-19 vaccination and acute neurological events
- Impact of First UK COVID-19 Lockdown on Hospital Admissions
- Accident and emergency (AE) attendance in England following infection with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron or Delta
- Rates of serious clinical outcomes in survivors of hospitalisation with COVID-19 in England
- Comparison of methods for predicting COVID-19-related death in the general population using the OpenSAFELY platform
- Potentially inappropriate prescribing of DOACs to people with mechanical heart valves
- Mortality among Care Home Residents in England during the first and second waves of the COVID-19 pandemic
- OpenSAFELY NHS Service Restoration Observatory 1: primary care clinical activity in England during the first wave of COVID-19
- Trends and clinical characteristics of COVID-19 vaccine recipients
- Impact of national guidance on switching anticoagulant therapy during COVID-19 pandemic
- Clinical coding of long COVID in English primary care
- Association between warfarin and COVID-19-related outcomes compared with direct oral anticoagulants
- Severity of Severe Acute Respiratory System Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Alpha Variant (B.1.1.7) in England
- Risks of covid-19 hospital admission and death for people with learning disability
- Factors associated with deaths due to COVID-19 versus other causes
- Ethnic differences in SARS-CoV-2 infection and COVID-19-related hospitalisation, intensive care unit admission, and death in 17 million adults in England
- Identifying Care Home Residents in Electronic Health Records
- Association between living with children and outcomes from covid-19
- Case fatality risk of the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7
- Changes in the rate of cardiometabolic and pulmonary events during the COVID-19 pandemic
- Short report: Ethnicity and COVID-19 death in the early part of the COVID-19 second wave in England
- Use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and risk of death from COVID-19
- HIV infection and COVID-19 death
- Effect of pre-exposure use of hydroxychloroquine on COVID-19 mortality
- Impact of Electronic Health Record Interface Design on Unsafe Prescribing of Ciclosporin, Tacrolimus, and Diltiazem: Cohort Study in English National Health Service Primary Care
- Comparison of different risk prediction modelling approaches for COVID-19 related death using the OpenSAFELY platform
- Risk of COVID-19-related death among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma prescribed inhaled corticosteroids
- Suboptimal prescribing behaviour associated with clinical software design features: a retrospective cohort study in English NHS primary care
- Factors associated with COVID-19-related death using OpenSAFELY
- Trends and variation in unsafe prescribing of methotrexate: a cohort study in English NHS primary care.
- Compliance with legal requirement to report clinical trial results on ClinicalTrials.gov: a cohort study
- Barriers to Working With National Health Service England's Open Data
- FDAAA TrialsTracker: A live informatics tool to monitor compliance with FDA requirements to report clinical trial results
- Is Use of Homeopathy Associated With Poor Prescribing in English Primary Care? A Cross-Sectional Study
- Measuring the Impact of an Open Web-Based Prescribing Data Analysis Service on Clinical Practice: Cohort Study on NHS England Data
- Opioid prescribing trends and geographical variation in England, 1998–2018: a retrospective database study
- Six months on – NHS England needs to focus on dissemination, implementation and audit of its Low-Priority Initiative
- Compliance with requirement to report results on the EU Clinical Trials Register: cohort study and web resource.
- Detecting Change in Comparison to Peers in NHS Prescribing Data: a Novel Application of Cumulative Sum Methodology
- Trends and variation in prescribing of low-priority treatments identified by NHS England: a cross-sectional study and interactive data tool in English primary care
- Time trends and geographical variation in prescribing of drugs for diabetes in England from 1998 to 2017
- Trends, geographical variation and factors associated with prescribing of gluten-free foods in English primary care: a cross-sectional study
- New mechanism to identify cost savings in English NHS prescribing: minimising 'price per unit', a cross-sectional study
Blog posts by Seb Bacon
- What is OpenSAFELY?
- OpenPathology: Issues with reference ranges — Part 3
- OpenPathology: Issues with reference ranges — Part 2
- OpenPathology: Issues with reference ranges — Part 1
- Validating pathology data against known shifts in clinical practice
- Dispensing data shows huge variation in Out of Pocket Expenses
- Limitations of NHS England prescribing data
- Could North Cumbria save money on haemorrhoid cream?
- What is a Dormant GP practice, and why are they prescribing?
- Prescribing Data: Using the Dictionary of medicines and devices