Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will publish the clinical evidence supporting the guidelines that clinically vulnerable people will not be automatically contacted by the NHS on treatments after reporting a positive covid-19 test result from 27 June 2023.

The COVID Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) service was established as part of pandemic specific arrangements and was designed to help manage service demand on the National Health Service and prevent hospitalisation. CMDUs were able to contact digitally identifiable patients following the reporting of a positive COVID-19 test result.

As we move out of the pandemic and levels of community infection are reducing, the NHS is embedding COVID-19 treatments into routine care pathways to ensure the sustainable access for highest risk patients.

Following positive National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) recommendations for community-based COVID-19 treatments, integrated care boards (ICBs) will have a statutory responsibility for providing access from 27 June. As with other treatments, it will be for ICBs, who are closer to their local population, to determine the appropriate arrangements for access within the treatment window.

NHS England has been working with local systems and clinical leaders to support the transition to routine access to provide assurance that local arrangements are in place. NHS clinicians will continue to assess patients to determine whether they are eligible of treatment in line with the NICE recommendation.