Treatments for coronavirus (COVID-19)

In December 2021, each integrated care system (ICS) established a local COVID-19 medicine delivery unit (CMDU) to offer treatment for COVID-19 in non-hospital settings. 

The COVID-19 treatment services that ran from 16 December 2021 to 26 June 2023 were set up under interim arrangements as a response to the pandemic, using a common care pathway that applied nationally. These services were supported by funding from the Department of Health and Social Care.

Now that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) has given its final recommendations on some of the COVID-19 treatments that should be offered by the NHS, these treatments are funded and arranged as part of routine NHS services through Integrated Care Boards (ICBs).

More information for NHS staff is available.

The 4 UK Chief Medical Officers set out criteria outlining who could access the treatments. This included people who had the following conditions:

• Down's syndrome
• sickle cell disease
• HIV or AIDS
• chronic kidney disease (CKD) stage 4 or 5
• certain types of cancer
• had certain types of chemotherapy in the last 12 months
• had radiotherapy in the last 6 months
• had an organ transplant
• a severe liver condition (such as cirrhosis)
• a rare condition affecting the brain or nerves (multiple sclerosis, motor neurone disease, Huntington’s disease or myasthenia gravis)
• certain autoimmune or inflammatory conditions (such as rheumatoid arthritis or inflammatory bowel disease)
• a condition or treatment that made them more likely to get infections

For the national COVID-19 treatments service, we were asked to develop a system to: 

• identify people who received a positive COVID-19 test and had at least one of the conditions detailed above
• provide the contact information for these patients to the CMDU
• record which patients have been processed
• we were also asked to provide a solution to find people who would be eligible for the Panoramic trial, which aims to to find out if COVID treatments in the community reduce the need for hospital admissions and help people to get better sooner

This system ran from the 16 December 2021 to 26 June 2023 and is now closed.

Some patients received a letter letting them know they may be eligible for treatment. At this stage, there was no action for the patient. However, patients were advised to accurately provide their NHS number and postcode when they register a lateral flow or PCR test. This enabled the NHS to contact them about the treatment if they test positive.

If an individual in these groups later tested positive, they were sent a text message and email with information about next steps.

Within a day of testing positive, they would also receive a call from a CMDU to arrange a clinical assessment. This determined whether they were eligible for treatment.