Coronavirus: NHS asks people to share their coronavirus symptoms to help others

Coronavirus: Community advice and support Shropshire CC

A new Coronavirus Status Checker that will help the NHS co-ordinate its response and build up additional data on the coronavirus pandemic was launched on Saturday 4 April 2020 by Health and Social Care Secretary Matt Hancock.

People with potential coronavirus symptoms are now being asked to complete the Status Checker and answer a short series of questions, which will tell the NHS about their experience.

It is open to anyone in the UK to use on the NHS website, and in its initial phase the NHS is particularly keen for anyone who thinks they may be displaying potential coronavirus symptoms, no matter how mild, to complete it.

Status Checker users are clearly told at the beginning and the end of the survey that it is not a triage or clinical advice tool, and that they should visit NHS 111 online for medical advice about their symptoms.

The information gathered will help the NHS to plan its response to the outbreak, indicating when and where more resources like oxygen, ventilators and additional staff might be needed, and will provide valuable insight into the development and progression of the virus across the country.

The service is hosted on the NHS website and is available to access openly, with links directly from the NHS 111 online coronavirus service and NHS coronavirus pages.

The initiative is a collaboration between NHS England, NHSX, NHS Digital and Public Health England, at the request of the Health and Social Care Secretary.

The creators of a number of independent apps and websites which have already launched to collect similar data have agreed to work openly with the NHS and align their products and data as part of this central, national effort.

Information collected by the NHS Coronavirus Status Checker will form part of a core national COVID-19 dataset held by NHS England.

The tool is live now and people can complete the survey either for themselve, or on behalf of someone else with their permission.