• Charities write open letter to encourage those with underlying health conditions to come forward for the jab
• More than half of cohort 6 have already been vaccinated
• Vaccine drive includes NHS text alert sent to more than two million people in this group

People with underlying conditions including cancer, diabetes and heart disease are being encouraged to come forward for a Covid-19 vaccine by leading UK health charities in an open letter published today.

Frontline charities, including Mencap, Diabetes UK and Lupus UK, have asked those with underlying medical conditions, their carers, and those with learning disabilities on their GP register, to book a vaccination to protect themselves and those around them from coronavirus.

People in cohort 6 have been prioritised for the vaccine because they have conditions that mean they are more likely to become seriously unwell from coronavirus.

More than half of those in cohort 6 have already received their first dose of the vaccine and it’s hoped that the charities’ letter – alongside text messages from the NHS – will help to increase take up further among those in this at-risk group.

The charities who signed the open letter are among 22 who have joined together in partnership to reassure those they support about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

GP services already have been contacting this cohort but those who have not yet received a letter can get a quick and convenient appointment at a vaccination centre or community pharmacy by using the national booking system or calling 119. The NHS have sent text messages to people in this group with a link so they can book their appointment.

The vaccine is safe and effective and very few people are advised not to have it. However, if you have any concerns, you can discuss these if you book over the phone, or with a health professional at your appointment.

Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock said:

“The backing of the charities who work every day to support those who are entitled to a jab as part of cohort 6 is a great boost for the vaccine rollout and shows what we can achieve when we pull together.

“This open letter is a hugely important way to reassure those with underlying health conditions, and their carers, about the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

“The charities’ support for this national vaccine effort is invaluable in encouraging more people to come forward and helping us to save lives.”

These vital charities support those included in priority vaccination categories, including cohort 6 which covers individuals aged 16 to 64 with certain long-term conditions identified by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation as being at higher clinical risk from Covid-19.

Underlying health conditions faced by people in cohort 6 include chronic respiratory, heart, kidney, liver disease and neurological conditions, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and epilepsy, stroke, vascular disease, diabetes mellitus, immunosuppression due to a health condition or treatment, asplenia or dysfunction of the spleen, morbid obesity, severe mental illness, as well as sickle cell, lupus and those on GP learning disability registers.

Cohort 6 also includes carers who are eligible for a carer’s allowance, or those who are the sole or primary carer of an elderly or disabled person who is at increased risk of Covid-19 mortality and therefore clinically vulnerable.

Minister for Vaccines Nadhim Zahawi said:

“We have already given a first dose of the vaccine to more than half of those in cohort 6 and I am grateful to the charities who are encouraging more people in that group to come forward.

“The vaccine is our way out of this pandemic and offers the chance to protect yourself and others – that’s why it’s vital that people get their jab.

“This open letter should help to reassure those with any concerns the vaccine is safe and supported by more than twenty of our most trusted charities.

“I would like to thank them all for backing this life-saving campaign and offering their expertise and assistance to support the largest medical deployment in British history.”

Notes to editors

Open letter

We are writing today to encourage people living with an underlying health condition in cohort 6 to come forward for a Covid-19 vaccine.

People with these conditions, including their carers, and those with learning disabilities on the learning disability register, have been prioritised by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation because they are more likely to become seriously unwell from Covid-19.

The vast majority of you should already have been invited for vaccination and more than half of you have already received your first dose.

Some of you may still be waiting for a letter from your GP.

But the good news is, even if you have not received your letter yet, you can now get an appointment at a vaccination centre or community pharmacy, quickly and easily, by using the national booking system or calling 119 in England.

We are proud to support the vaccination roll-out and are here to support you.

The vaccine is safe and effective and very few people are advised not to have it. However, if you have any concerns, you can discuss these when you book, or with a health professional at your appointment.

Over 20 million people in the UK have had their first dose and great progress has been made by the NHS.

We are very pleased to see the Covid-19 vaccination roll-out providing protection for people, like you, who are most at risk from the virus.

Underlying health conditions in cohort 6 include chronic respiratory, heart, kidney, liver disease and neurological conditions, including multiple sclerosis (MS) and epilepsy, stroke, vascular disease, diabetes mellitus, immunosuppression, due to a health condition or treatment, asplenia or dysfunction of the spleen, morbid obesity, severe mental illness, as well as sickle cell, lupus and those on GP learning disability registers.

Cohort 6 also includes carers who are eligible for a carer’s allowance, or those who are the sole or primary carer of an elderly or disabled person who is at increased risk of Covid-19 mortality and therefore clinically vulnerable.

The vaccines that have been approved for use in the UK have met the strict safety standards set by the medicines regulator on safety, quality and effectiveness.

To protect yourself and your family, friends and colleagues, you still need to follow the current government guidance on social contact after receiving your vaccine.

Please come forward to have the jab. It will help save lives and offers the best form of protection from this terrible virus.

Further notes to editors

Those using the national booking service can input their NHS number which will identify whether they are eligible according to their health records.

The campaign video is available here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJdKpMG54sM&feature=youtu.be

The organisations within the partnership, 18 of which have also signed the letter, are:

• ACLT (African Caribbean Leukaemia Trust)
• Anthony Nolan
• Asthma UK
• British Heart Foundation
• British Liver Trust
• British Lung Foundation
• Cancer Research UK
• Carers UK
• Diabetes UK
• Epilepsy Action
• Kidney Care UK
• Kidney Research UK
• Lupus UK
• Macmillan Cancer Support
• Mencap
• MS Society
• National Kidney Federation
• Rethink Mental Illness
• Sickle Cell Society
• Stroke Association
• Terrence Higgins Trust
• Versus Arthritis

Unpaid carers are included in cohort 6 providing they:

• are eligible for a carer’s allowance
• are identified as a primary carer by their GP
• are receiving support following a carer’s assessment by their local council or from a local carer’s organisation
• are the sole or primary carer who provides close personal care or face to face support for an elderly or disabled person who is clinically vulnerable to COVID-19

• Regular, rapid testing will be a crucial tool to prevent outbreaks in the workplace as we cautiously ease restrictions, keeping employees safe and businesses open
• A major expansion of the free programme now means all businesses can access workplace testing, and are encouraged to register their interest by 31 March

Over 48,000 businesses have registered their interest in the government’s free workplace testing programme, using rapid lateral flow tests that can give a result in 30 minutes.

Over 9,000 businesses have already completed the sign-up process, and all other businesses are encouraged to register by 31 March to help keep their employees safe, prevent outbreaks and suppress the spread of the virus. Businesses are encouraged to register before 31 March, even if they’re not yet open or are not able to start using the tests straight away.

Around 1 in 3 people with coronavirus do not have symptoms, which means they could be spreading the virus in workplaces without knowing. Rapid testing for people without symptoms detects cases quickly, meaning positive cases can isolate immediately, breaking chains of transmission.

Testing will form a crucial part of everyday life as parts of society reopen. Regular testing could be the difference between a workplace being able to stay open and operational, or needing to close due to a COVID-19 outbreak.

New analysis by NHS Test and Trace shows lateral flow (LFD) tests to have a specificity of at least 99.9%. This means that for every 1,000 lateral flow tests carried out, there is less than one false positive result.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock said:

We have built a huge asymptomatic testing system from scratch, which is an essential part of our plan to reopen cautiously.

Rapid testing has been rolled out at a vast scale across a range of sectors, and it is fantastic that now over 48,000 businesses have signed up to offer rapid testing to employees. This is a huge step forward in getting businesses back on their feet and helping to keep people safe.

With around 1 in 3 people with the virus not having symptoms, regular testing is essential to bearing down on the virus and identify new variants of concern as we work towards restoring normal life. I strongly encourage all businesses to register their interest before the 31 March deadline.

Businesses have until 31 March to register for the government’s workplace testing scheme, which will remain free until the end of June. Businesses of any size, including those with fewer than 50 employees, can sign up to offer workplace testing. Those who need to leave home for work can also access regular testing through community testing, which is now offered by all local authorities in England.

Regular, rapid testing is already in place for millions of people across the NHS, care homes and schools. The government has also confirmed twice-weekly testing using LFDs for free to all adults in households with nursery, primary, secondary school and college-aged children and young people, including childcare and support bubbles.

This is in addition to the 2 tests for all secondary and college students and staff per week. Staff at private, voluntary and independent nurseries also have access to rapid testing through their workplace.

Case studies

Phillips 66 Humber Refinery

Phillips 66 Humber Refinery produces up to 14 million litres, with around 20% of all UK petroleum products coming from the Humber Refinery. They are testing over 1,000 staff a week and have almost completed 10,000 tests in total.

Darren Cunningham, Lead Executive UK and General Manager at Humber Refinery, said:

When offered the opportunity to take part in lateral flow testing, we jumped at the opportunity. Why wouldn’t we? It is another layer of protection to keep our staff, their families and our communities safer. The operation to set up large-scale testing for 1,000 staff weekly – and it did pose some challenges – we are now running smoothly, and happily sharing what we did to help other key industries set up their own LFT facility.

Siemens Mobility

Siemens Mobility has been a leader in transport solutions for more than 160 years and now employs 36,800 people worldwide, with 4,500 of those in the UK. The organisation’s core areas are rolling stock, rail automation and electrification, turnkey systems and intelligent traffic systems. In total, Siemens Mobility operates from around 70 UK locations.

William Wilson, CEO of Siemens Mobility Limited, said:

Our people have played vital roles throughout the pandemic maintaining critical national infrastructure and helping essential services to operate safely and efficiently. As we move towards the relaxation of lockdown rules, introducing regular COVID-19 testing, with almost instant results, plays a vital role in helping to track and contain virus spread, as well as provide our employees with peace of mind.

Unipart Group

Unipart Group is a leading UK manufacturer, full-service logistics provider and consultant headquartered in Oxford. Unipart operates across a range of market sectors, including automotive, healthcare and the NHS, manufacturing, mobile telecoms, rail, retail and technology. Around 130 workers are tested every week – 90% of the workforce working from this site.

Debs Astles, Unipart Group HR Director – Corporate Responsibility and Policy, said:

Encouraging our people to get regular tests is an important part of our COVID-safe commitment across our sites, and helps us support our colleagues’ safety and wellbeing. This ensures we can continue to provide essential services to customers across key sectors such as healthcare and the NHS, automotive, essential retail and the construction industry.

Birchall Foodservice

Birchall Foodservice is an independent, family-owned business with depots in Burnley, Durham, Sheffield and Stoke-on-Trent. The company employs 150 people. Birchall Foodservice delivers a ‘one-stop shop’ range of foods, drinks, non-foods and equipment to caterers working in the care, education and hospitality sectors.

Louise Birchall, sales director at Birchall Foodservice, said:

The introduction of rapid testing allows us to quickly identify asymptomatic cases of coronavirus within the business. By isolating these cases, we can stop any potential spread of COVID-19 and help protect our employees, their families and our customers. We are encouraging all local businesses, no matter the size, to introduce frequent, rapid testing amongst their workforce.

The Glasdon Group

The Glasdon Group is a design and manufacture company specialising in litter and recycling bins, road safety products, a diverse range of building systems, shelters, seating products, water safety products and snow-clearing equipment. The company employs over 250 employees and is based in Blackpool, Lancashire. They have been carrying out testing via their local authority, Blackpool Council, since December 2020, and they now have 5 testing stations where they can process up to 60 tests per hour. The company carries out approximately 400 tests per week.

Gary Butler, Health and Safety Manager at the Glasdon Group, said:

Testing all of our staff and any visiting contractors twice per week is providing us with the confidence that our own control measures are having the desired result of protecting our employees during the pandemic. The rapid test results enable us to isolate any affected staff as quickly as possible, thus reducing the chance of an outbreak on the premises.

The response of the Glasdon employees to the testing programme has been positive and is going a long way to making them feel safe in their place of work during these difficult times. Testing twice per week is also providing a level of assurance to the employees’ families that they are not putting their own households at extra risk by coming to work.

Background information

Businesses have until 31 March to register for the government’s workplace testing scheme, which will remain free until the end of June.

On the night of 28 June 2007 at a junction codenamed Orange 13, I watched the deceptively slow flight of an RPG-7 heading our way before it ricocheted off the road and streaked over our heads. Moments before and yards away, four soldiers had been caught in a blast bomb as we secured a route for a vulnerable logistics convoy. Our attention was desperately focused on the missing soldiers. But at the back of our minds we had another concern, which would have consequences beyond a bad night in Basra: we had lost the initiative. The UK and the West risk a similar fate. We are ceding the strategic initiative to our rivals. For all we herald the return of great power competition, the truth is it has never ended. While we drained our strength in interventions like Iraq, others used the time and space to further their interests more strategically. China has pursued a strategy of winning without fighting, changing the terms of the international order; Russia has combined military and non-military means to alter the map, attempting to change the balance of power and undermining the cohesion of our societies through disinformation. Both are gaining a decisive advantage in information age military technologies.

The consequence has been a succession of strategic surprises, the erosion of strategic advantage and the loss of initiative. Unchecked it is not unthinkable that we will find ourselves vulnerable in time to a fait accompli, where as a nation we have capitulated without a shot being fired. This all matters because it coincides with a moment of reckoning for the UK. Our departure from the EU means we are a sovereign actor in this competition, so our strategy matters more than any other point since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

The Government’s Integrated Review will set out a competitive strategy for regaining the initiative. The clue is in the name. It will better integrate our national levers of power to regain strategic advantage, leveraging the formidable international influence we can exert with our allies. It will preserve the best aspects of the old while shaping the emergence of a new order, and defence and the armed forces have a critical role to play. The announcement of a £24.1-billion uplift in spending is an emphatic statement of intent. Alongside investments in modernisation of our conventional fighting force – our ships, armoured vehicles, aircraft, all so critical to our commitment to Allies and partners – we will be guided by a laser-like focus on tackling the emerging threats of the future, shaping different armed forces. We will sharpen our competitive edge, particularly in space and cyber and fields like Artificial Intelligence. The UK Armed Forces will be more active, more dynamic and more global, contesting incursions in the so-called grey zone. And they will be more integrated.

The three traditional services will have a critical role operating in this grey zone as well as providing the foundations of our fighting power. But at the heart of this modernisation lies the more discreet organisation I head, known as Strategic Command. From our headquarters in Northwood, Strategic Command brings together everything that integrates the armed forces – the enabling information age technologies, cyberspace, space (with the RAF), Intelligence, Special Forces, our force design brain and the underpinning support base.

This starts, first and foremost with Defence Intelligence – the expert assessment of intelligence and risk that allows us to identify long term opportunities for competitive advantage, whilst mitigating vulnerabilities, and further strategic surprise. We won’t always get this right, so our approach will be guided by constant experimentation and rapid prototyping of new ideas.

Secondly, we need to compete in Information Age warfare. Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google, told the US Senate that ‘the sources of battlefield advantage will shift from traditional factors like force size and levels of armaments, to factors like superior data collection and assimilation, connectivity, computing power, algorithms and system security’. Our rivals agree and are investing accordingly. In the UK our research sector gives us an edge. So we are building a digital backbone for Defence and exploiting cloud computing. And we will deliver on the PM’s vision of an AI Centre to exploit the advantages of increasingly autonomous systems.

Third we will grow our grey zone capabilities to defend ourselves and our allies and regain the initiative. We are growing the National Cyber Force with GCHQ to become a world class responsible cyber power while securing our own networks and data and regain the edge in electronic warfare. This year for example we are providing cyber defences and cyber effects for HMS Queen Elizabeth’s global deployment. And we will transform and expand our special operations forces, maintaining their counter-terrorism skills while growing their ability to work with and train reliable partner forces around the world.

Our ambition is to be the leading integrated force in the world. We have long been among the most effective when it comes to combining our forces – air, land and sea. To these we must now add cyberspace and space, both growing our capabilities in these new domains and designing the force to be seamlessly integrated. A soldier on the battlefield will be able to instantly draw on space-based surveillance, cyber defences and sensors, to craft the precise response needed, whether that’s ordering a swarm attack by drones or a long-range precision strike from a ship or aircraft – all without skipping a beat. The ability to pose multiple dilemmas for our adversaries and radically increase our speed of action and decision making, through AI, will make us a respected competitor a more effective ally and will deliver modern deterrence for our nation.

Sooner or later, soldiers, sailors or air force personnel will find themselves in the sort of ugly gritty fight we were caught up in on 28 June 2007. It is an article of faith for all of us leading defence that we must do better to make sure that at the strategic and the tactical level we have given them the tools to seize the initiative. The Integrated Review sets us on that path.