Patients identified by QCovid as being at high risk for gestational diabetes alone may be manually removed from the screening list in certain cases, according to NHS Digital.
In an earlier update, NHS Digital said that some young, healthy women have been instructed to shield themselves because of previous gestational diabetes and that the QCovid risk tool is being “actively reviewed”.
However, the body has now added that general practitioners can remove a person trapped for previous gestational diabetes if the patient meets a certain risk criterion and requests it.
To be removed, the patient must have “no other significant conditions” along with a BMI of “between 16 and 41” and an HbA1c test done since delivery and within the last 12 months, which is normal or in pre-diabetes or non-diabetic hyperglycaemia ”.
Although the patient would be removed from the screening list, he would still be called for an early Covid vaccine, NHS Digital said.
It added that general practitioners should always use their “clinical judgment” and discuss any decision to remove a patient from the list, and referred to an RCGP resource to assist in this.
NHS Digital said, “What is important is that women with gestational diabetes are at increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes (which would put them at a higher risk for coronavirus) and they should continue to have the recommended annual checkups.”
The statement reiterated that many people with previous gestational diabetes were appropriately classified as at risk by QCovid and that the QCovid model assesses “a wide range of risk factors”.
It has been said that some people may have diabetes when they actually had gestational diabetes, as the assessment is based on routinely encoded data from multiple systems. Others may have “incomplete data,” which means the system has “precautionary” adjusted for a higher risk, it added.
Pulse reported last week that general practitioners were inundated by women who were told to protect themselves even though they weren’t at high risk for Covid-19.
