Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 7
7
As its understanding of the disease has grown, DHSC has developed a new risk assessment...
Conclusion
As its understanding of the disease has grown, DHSC has developed a new risk assessment tool, QCovid, to identify people at risk based on wider factors which make them at more risk from COVID-19. DHSC described the tool as having technical, clinical and academic elements.10 QCovid identifies people who have combined risk factors which put them at enhanced risk, including personal characteristics, such as age, ethnicity and body mass index.11 DHSC told us it considered it was ‘pretty good going’ to take 10 months to develop the tool and that it would have been difficult to develop it more quickly.12 DHSC used this tool to identify an additional 1.7 million Clinically extremely vulnerable people in February 2021.13
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
1.2 Shielding is an intervention to protect the clinically extremely vulnerable to reduce risk of severe illness or death. It is, therefore necessarily linked to susceptibility to disease. Shielding support was put in place to enable the clinically extremely vulnerable to follow shielding advice. Whilst the initial definition of the Clinically Extremely Vulnerable (CEV) group was based solely on medical conditions, further evidence and the introduction of the QCOVID® tool has allowed government to introduce non-clinical factors such as ethnicity, gender and postcode to improve identification of those most at risk from COVID-19.