🏥 Help the NHS out 🏥
This isn’t official NHS or PHE advice, so please always check for and follow any official updated guidance. I am the first to say most facebook shared health advice is rubbish. 111.nhs.uk/covid-19/
As routine surgeries and clinics get cancelled we need to look after ourselves more. Going to A&E should be for absolute emergencies anyway, but other routine medical conditions and emergencies will still continue to happen, as well as Coronavirus infections, and people will still continue to be treated. The staff looking after you are doing their best, but they might be looking after you in non hospital buildings and they might not have access to your usual hospital notes/GP records or clinic letters and results as they would usually. Or they might be working for a different GP practice or hospital to your usual. They might not have the time initially to go and get your notes and read through 3 folders worth and they won’t be a specialist in your condition.
So let’s help them help you. Making a single page (or pages) print out of your medical history as you understand it (or clear hand written if you don’t have a printer) and making several copies will help them out. If you get admitted you possibly won’t be allowed to have anyone accompany you who would usually help you out with details. They can take one copy in A&E for example and then you have another to keep on you. You can add to it, but try and keep the “highlights” in brief and you can expand on things later on.
Even if you are completely healthy, just saying “I am a marathon runner with a resting heart rate of 50 and on no medications” with your name etc is actually helpful as well. It will help even if you go in for “just” a broken arm. This list isn’t set in stone or what everyone needs to write, so adapt it to your own health conditions and add or delete as you think is relevant to you. It’s just meant as a starting guide. Also don’t be offended if the medical team do want to double check any information you have written. If you don’t know the official name of something, give as much information as you can. Spelling doesn’t matter, as long as you write it as it sounds/you understand it, it is enough of a guide for the medical team to ask you the right questions about it.
If you do go to hospital, (as you should anyway) take all your medications with you. They won’t have time to find them in pharmacy for you immediately. Write down the times of the day you usually take things, not just “once a day”. A copy of your GP repeat prescription is also helpful if you have it. Include any specific care plans for your health conditions and copies of recent letters if you think they will help guide treatment. But an A&E doctor isn’t going to want to know you had one stitch on your little finger when you were 7 as the most important bit of information and they won’t be able to read through 40 pages of attached clinic letters. If you have a medical condition meaning you might be in the more vulnerable group, consider packing a hospital bag (or writing a list of things to pack at short notice) of PJs/clothes for hospital and basic toiletries etc as you won’t be able to have any visitors bring you things as would normally happen. This is especially important if you live on your own.
I’ll add the text in a comment so you can copy and paste it to adapt it for you.
*Edited to add, talking less is better for you when breathless and less likely to spread Coronavirus to the health care professionals. Thanks Brad!
*Editd to add - Yes phone apps and medical alert bracelets are useful, but phoning a number/looking at a website takes time. Also phones are a contamination risk. Having this on your lap makes it easier for everyone.