Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the statement in the leaflet enclosed with the letter from the Prime Minister updating recipients on the steps being taken to combat COVID-19 that “If you are at a very high risk due to a serious underlying health condition, you should have already received a letter from the NHS containing specific guidance about what to do”, between which dates was that letter to those at a very high risk despatched; what were the maximum number of days allowed, under any contractual arrangements, between date of despatch and date of delivery; to how many people that letter has been despatched; and from what source, or sources, was the list of people to whom that letter has been sent, obtained.

Those identified as extremely clinically vulnerable are put on the Shielded Patient List, which is drawn from multiple sources. An initial list of patients with high risk conditions has been supplemented by general practitioners (GPs) and hospital consultants adding individual patients to the list based on their clinical assessments of each individual’s needs. The list is dynamic. People are added to the list as we learn more about the virus and expand the list of high-risk conditions, or as additional patients are added at their clinician’s discretion. Letters have therefore been issued at various stages during this process. We cannot give a precise date of when letters are issued or when they should have been received, but everyone who has been identified should now have been sent a letter either centrally by the National Health Service or by their local clinician.

That number of people on the Shielded Patient List currently stands at 2.2 million people in England. If someone has not received a letter, then we would advise they contact their local GP or their hospital consultant in order to discuss this.