Guidance

COVID-19: guidance for primary care

Advice for primary care professionals dealing with patients with suspected COVID-19.

• From: Public Health England
• Published: 21 January 2020
• Last updated: 19 March 2020
  Show all updates

  1. 19 March 2020

     Updated guidance in consultation with NHS England (NHSE).

  2. 18 March 2020

     Updated to reflect stay at home guidance.

  3. 25 February 2020

     Updated specified countries and areas.

  4. 20 February 2020

     Updated 'Actions to take' regarding use of surgical face masks.

  5. 7 February 2020

     Updated the section 'Actions to take'.

  6. 6 February 2020

     Change to relevant travel history: now China, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, or Thailand.

  7. 31 January 2020

     Updated terminology for novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

  8. 30 January 2020

     Replaced Wuhan City with "mainland China, not including Hong Kong and Macao".

  9. 27 January 2020

     Added advice on cleaning of primary care premises following a possible case.

  10. 21 January 2020

      First published.

This publication was withdrawn on 6 April 2020

The information on this page has been superseded by information at the following links:

• information about the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) in primary care
• primary care guidance and standard operating procedures for COVID-19 are now provided by NHS England
• posters to support safe putting on and taking off PPE

Documents

[Withdrawn] COVID-19: interim guidance for primary care

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Details

Primary care professionals can use this information to reduce the risk of spread of infection during and following consultation with a suspected case of COVID-19.

There may be further information specific to each country in the United Kingdom, as this guidance was written by Public Health England primarily for an English health professional audience. To see if country specific information is available, please refer to Health Protection Scotland, Public Health Wales, or Public Health Agency in Northern Ireland.