This COVID19 Return to work guide offers guidance for workers from Occupational Health Professionals on how to manage getting back to work after COVID-19 infection and Long COVID.

We have invited all of our patients 50 and over as well as those identified as clinically extremely vulnerable (patients who received a letter advising them to shield).  If you are aged 50 and over or are on the government’s shielding list and you have not heard from us or have changed your mind about vaccination please get in touch for an appointment.

We ask that you do not contact the surgery to book an appointment until you have received a message from us inviting you to do so.  We are contacting patients in strict order and, if you have not heard from us already, you should be contacted soon.  If you get in touch without having been contacted first we will not be able to offer you an appointment.

Who is on the priority list for the vaccine?

The vaccine is currently being offered to people most at risk of coronavirus, including some people aged 80 and over, people who live or work in care homes and health care workers at high risk. Vaccination for other groups will begin once the supply of vaccines become available. The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation, which advises the Government, has issued a priority list for the vaccine. It sets out the groups of people who will get a vaccine in order of priority across the whole of the UK:

1. Residents in a care home for older adults and their carers.
2. Everyone 80 years of age and over, and frontline health and social care workers.
3. Everyone 75 years of age and over.
4. Everyone 70 years of age and over, and clinically extremely vulnerable individuals.
5. Everyone 65 years of age and over.
6. People aged 16-64 who have underlying health conditions which put them at higher risk of serious disease and mortality, including people with a severe or profound learning disability. Group 6 also includes unpaid carers, including people who are in receipt of Carer’s Allowance or are the main carer of an elderly or disabled person. This does not include the person they care for, although that person may fall into one of the priority groups for a different reason.
7. Everyone 60 years of age and over.
8. Everyone 55 years of age and over.
9. Everyone 50 years of age and over.

Who is considered Clinically Extremely Vulnerable?

The people who are defined as clinically extremely vulnerable and placed in the fourth priority group are:

• solid organ transplant recipients
• people with specific cancers and people with cancer who are undergoing active chemotherapy
• people who have had bone marrow or stem cell transplants in the past six months or are still taking immunosuppression drugs
• people with severe respiratory conditions including all cystic fibrosis, severe asthma and severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
• people with rare diseases that significantly increase the risk of infections (such as severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID), homozygous sickle cell)
• people on immunosuppression therapies sufficient to significantly increase risk of infection
• adults with Down’s syndrome
• adults on dialysis or with chronic kidney disease (Stage 5)
• women who are pregnant with significant heart disease, congenital or acquired

Please use the service below if you need a note for your employer or the Department for Work and Pensions for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).

Get a shielding note

You will asked for your date of birth.

You will also need to know your NHS number – this is a 10 digit number you can find on any letter the NHS has sent you, for example, 485 777 3456.

This data will be checked to see if you’re on the shielded patients list. If you are, you will sent a shielding note.

Your note will be sent by email to the address you used to register with your GP surgery

If there is no email address held for you, your letter will be sent letter in the post – this should take 3 working days.

This note will be valid for 3 weeks from the date you enter.

You can use this service on behalf of someone else.

People who shielded last spring are being advised to shield again.

Some people’s circumstances may have changed since then.

If you think your circumstances have changed, please tell us how & we will ask as doctor to review your case.

Otherwise the government advice is that you should shield.

We do not know yet whether vaccination will mean we can recommend an end to shielding or not.