COVID-19 advice for dermatology patients

We appreciate that many of our dermatology patients are worried about COVID-19, and want information and advice in order to make decisions about their own care, and those around them.

We are receiving a lot of calls regarding this and are doing our best to respond. In the meantime, please see the following advice which will be regularly updated, before contacting us.

Appointments

We have postponed all routine Dermatology follow up appointments except for patients with urgent skin cancers and those taking medications that need monitoring or injecting.

We are not currently seeing routine new patients but the situation is under regular review.

You should continue to attend for your scheduled blood monitoring appointments, unless told otherwise.

Some guidance for regular monitoring is being extended, so you may be asked to lengthen the gap between your blood tests if they have been normal.

Please contact us if you are under our care and you urgently need to be seen by a Dermatologist, or if you require telephone advice.

GPs can continue to contact the department via ‘Advice and Guidance’. Urgent cases should be discussed with the on-call team.

Do I need to shield?

There are some clinical conditions and treatments which place people at higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19 (clinically extremely vulnerable). You can find out more on the Government’s website which is regularly updated:

Guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable

I am on an immunosuppressant medication, should I shield?

Please refer to the table on the British Association of Dermatologists to help understand which patients have been identified in the ‘shielded’ category:

British Association of Dermatologists

You will see in the table that there is a middle column where the risk of COVID-19 may place patients at a moderate risk. These patients are advised to shield if there are other concerns, high risk circumstances or other medical conditions.

You may also find the following link from Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust “Dermatology and coronavirus: frequently asked questions” helpful.

At the bottom of the website you will find “Table 2: self-assessment risk calculator.” Patients can use this to calculate their health risks to see if they are required to shield.

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust – Dermatology and Coronavirus

Should I stop taking my medicine?

We are not advising patients to routinely stop or reduce their medications.

If you develop symptoms of Coronavirus infection, or if a member of your household has symptoms of Coronavirus infection and you are self-isolating, you should not administer any doses of biologics/immunosuppressant during this period until it is clear you are well.

The exception to this is if you are taking corticosteroids (prednisolone or hydrocortisone tablets) as this should not be stopped abruptly.

Should I have received a letter identifying me as a patient who is required to “shield”?

All of our patients who we feel should “shield” will have received a letter either from their GP or from our department informing them that they need to be ‘shielded’ with stringent self-isolation for 12 weeks.

I think I should be shielding, but I have not received a letter telling me to do this? or

I have received a letter stating that I should shield, but I don’t think this is correct

We used a combination of databases to identify patients in this group. We are confident that the vast majority of patients have been correctly identified, but unavoidably a number of patients will have been missed or included unnecessarily.

If you feel that you should be included in the ‘shielded’ group or if you have been included unnecessarily then you can contact the department:

Telephone: 0191 2824783

Email: [email protected]