A GP's verdict on the shielding list: 'it's been really complicated'

[Northerner]

It was a good idea to set up the shielding list so that people who needed to stay at home completely to reduce their risk from coronavirus would get a letter from the NHS advising them to do that.

But it was a stupid idea for the government to give the public the impression that it would be a simple thing to do. In reality it’s been really complicated identifying who should and shouldn’t be on, and taken a long time to get it right.

There are several reasons why it’s taken a while to get from the 1.5 million people on the original list to the 2.5 million on it now. One involves the way the NHS codes certain diseases. For example, if someone has asthma – as many millions of people do – it’s simply recorded on their medical records as “asthma”. It doesn’t specify whether someone has mild asthma, which means they don’t need to be on the shielding list, or severe asthma, which means they do.

Human error has been another problem. That is, when GPs and other health professionals have updated someone’s medical records, they haven’t differentiated between someone who is a carrier – who has a genetic predisposition to a disease but doesn’t suffer from it – and someone with active disease. That has led to people being on the list unnecessarily, and people not being on it when they should.

A GP's verdict on the shielding list: 'It's been really complicated'

A GP explains why it has taken time to build up the list from the initial 1.5 million people

www.theguardian.com

 

[SB2015]

Thanks for this @Northerner
An interesting read.

 

[Drummer]

There have been problems where the people living in a house were able to manage in normal circumstances, but when someone can't be left alone either at home or in the car, but can't accompany their carer into the supermarket when there is a strict one person rule - there are quite a few households like that around here, and there have been problems.
I saw one elderly man wandering around the supermarket car park and then being chased by the marshal, but wearing a mask he frightened the poor fellow and he was in danger of running out onto the road, so he was grabbed and became very frightened indeed.