The NHS will do its utmost to support everyone who needs it, whether or not they are in a category of ‘increased risk’.
However, your underlying condition(s) is important as it may well affect how you will respond to treatments, and therefore the type of treatment you should receive.
In some cases, knowing about an existing health condition can help you to get timely access to treatments that will help you.
In other cases, an underlying condition will mean that certain treatments won’t work, and should be avoided because they would be ineffective or even bad for you. Some treatments are only available in hospital because they need specialist equipment or specialist staff. Where a decision is taken that someone will not benefit from such treatments in hospital, they should receive support and medications from their GP and NHS team in the community,while staying at home.
It is important to remember that people can still get ill from other new and/or existing conditions during the pandemic. You can still call your GP practice during normal hours to receive help for these.
More resources
Further public-facing information about COVID-19 is available on the NHS Inform website . If you have difficulties hearing or communicating you can call NHS inform (18001 0800 22 44 88) on a textphone. If you think it is a medical emergency you should call 999.
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
