Reminder: A community-based Covid-19 treatment is accessible for NEL patients, provided by the NEL local COVID-19 Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) at Barts Health.
Details of this service and what you do and don’t need to do in general practice are attached.
- Following the Government’s announcement on changes to COVID-19 testing infrastructure, patients eligible for community COVID-19 antibody and antiviral treatments should check coronavirus symptoms using lateral flow tests, not a PCR test, and will receive lateral flow tests from UKHSA to keep at home. Guidance is provided in this letter, updated in May 2022.
Key information you must know:
- You will not need to prescribe or dispense antivirals or nMABs.
- The majority of highest risk patients who test positive should be automatically contacted by their COVID-19 Medicines Delivery Unit (CMDU).
- A small proportion of highest risk patients testing positive through a registered lateral flow result may contact their GP practice (in hours) or 111 (out of hours) for an urgent referral to a COVID-19 Medicine Delivery Unit (CMDU) if they test positive for coronavirus via a PCR or lateral flow test. Guidance is provided in this letter, updated in May 2022.
- You can refer patients to the local CMDU using the electronic Referral Service (eRS). Of note, Paxlovid has multiple potential drug interactions so inclusion of the patient's medications in the referral is vital.
- Highest risk patients should have received a letter or email telling them in advance they may be eligible for these treatments. Specialists are helping provide equivalent information to patients who may not have received the letter but are likely to be eligible e.g. those newly diagnosed.
- You are encouraged to help recruit to the PANORAMIC study which is testing antivirals in a wider group of patients including over-50s.
To find out more information, please visit the PANORAMIC website: www.panoramictrial.org