Intrigued by comment on letter from Consultant

[MrsAvocet]

I got a copy of the letter from a Consultant to my GP this morning. That in itself was a bit of a surprise as I've been seeing this doctor for nearly 2 years now and never been sent a copy of my clinic letters before, but that's fine, I don't mind either way.
What intrigues me is that right across the top of the letter it says in bold "Patient assessed and treated during the coronavirus pandemic".Anybody know why that's there? I would have thought it was fairly obvious given the date! I've come up with acouple of theories, one being is that its something to do with contact tracing, and the other that there's some kind of follow up going to be done to see if patients treated for other things during the pandemic do less well than might be expected. I've certainly had less face to face appointments than I would have done normally so I wondered if they might be looking at outcomes of people assessed and treated in new ways.
I'm not worried - I'm sure there's nothing sinister about it - just a bit nosey. Anyone else noticed this? Is it a national thing? Or can any HCPs shed any light?

Could it be to get a tick in the box that says the hospital has continued to treat people with non-Covid health problems?

Pure guess on my part based on frequent media reports that the NHS is being urged not to neglect non-Covid patients.

Good point WitchesSpelleas I hadn't thought of that. There could be some kind of funding implication too. It just amused me a bit in a way, like my GP might not have noticed there was a pandemic on.
I'm sure there's a rational explanation!

my first thought is it's some kind of get-out clause for delays or not having done as many tests as usual.

I dont think it means anything, they are just giving some context/a bit of a description, like they might at another time say 'over the Christmas period'.

Missed the bit where you said it was in bold across the top. Not sure then, definitely not contact tracing or similar, probably just a consultant quirk!

Context; to explain delays or decisions such as remote consultations or deferring treatment

We don't have a standard message on ours yet but maybe it will come

Remember medical notes will be accessed possibly decades from now when no-one will remember when Covid happened.

If I do write anything about COVID it will be to explain a limitation or change to normal practice eg can't examine on a video consult, risk: benefit for ordering scans has changed in favour of doing less.

I'm afraid it is pretty much arse covering in all likelihood.