Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to notify people once they have been removed from the Shielded Patient List.

Guidance has been in place since the beginning of the pandemic advising clinicians that they must directly inform people when they are assessed to no longer be clinically extremely vulnerable and therefore removed from the Shielded Patient List. A template letter has been made available for use by clinicians to do this, which is routinely updated to ensure it reflects the latest guidance for the general population.

Clinicians have also been routinely reminded of this expectation by NHS England and NHS Improvement in communications issued during the course of the pandemic.