How is the Minister monitoring whether GPs are continuing to update the shielded list with the names of new patients who are clinically extremely vulnerable/shielded in Wales?
GPs have been provided with detailed guidance about how to add or remove someone from the Shielding Patient List. The Senior Medical Officer leading on shielding communicates with colleagues in primary care regularly, to share the latest advice and information and frequently includes reminders on how to update a person’s medical records with the appropriate clinical code to add or remove a person from the Shielding Patient List, as appropriate.
Data on additions and removals from the shielding patient list is communicated by NWIS to the Welsh Government on a weekly basis. Primary care colleagues have been making additions to the Shielding Patient List throughout the pandemic and continue to do so.
We have published guidance on the Welsh Government website, which includes a list of conditions, which the four UK chief medical officers have determined would make a person clinically extremely vulnerable. If a person believes that their medical condition makes them clinically extremely vulnerable but they have not received letters of advice, they should contact their GP or secondary care clinician to discuss this. The decision about whether or not a person should be added to the Shielding Patient List is a clinical one.