Clinically vulnerable people in England and Wales

FOI Ref: ​FOI/2021/3455

You asked

Please provide figures on the number of people that become classed as clinically vulnerable per week, month or year.

We said

Thank you for your enquiry.

Unfortuantely, we do not hold information on the number of Clinically Extremely Vulnerable that were added or removed to the list at regular intervals. The organisation responsible for the Shielded Patient List was NHS- Digital. Please see https://digital.nhs.uk/coronavirus/shielded-patient-list

In ONS, we used to total number of CEV people, at fixed points in time to help make sure our statistics were representative of the CEV population at the time of the surveys. The population totals ONS received were supplied by NHS- Digital. When major additions were made to the CEV population such as in February 2021, we updated our methodology to reflect that. More information can be found in section 2 of the following:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/methodologies/coronavirusandclinicallyextremelyvulnerablepeopleinenglandmethodology#identifying-clinically-extremely-vulnerable-people

The Department of Health and Social Care would be better placed to answer your enquiry. They can be contacted using this form or by telephone on 0300 790 4007. ​Thank you for your enquiry.