We are aware that many of you are rightly incensed by this item in the daily GP news from NHSEI, and that indeed some practices have experienced returning doctors turning up at their surgeries for verification:
Across the NHS we are working to get clinicians who wish to offer their support back into practice as quickly and as safely as possible. In order to return to work, individuals will need to complete identification and right to work verification.
Whilst some returning GPs may choose to undertake verification online; others may visit their local practice in order to complete the process in person. We would like to ask for help from your practices in completing this verification.
If a returning GP asks your practice team to help them with verification, we would be very grateful if they could:
- Check the documents presented and satisfy themselves that they are consistent with the appearance of the individual.
- Take a photocopy or a scanned copy of each of the documents presented.
- Complete the identification checklist which can be found here along with further information about the process.
- Send scanned copies of the verified documents and the checklist to the GP’s employer at Covid19.CAS@nhs.net from your organisation’s NHS.net account, or another encrypted account if this is not possible.
It beggars belief that NHS England’s medical director for primary care should put her name to this and expect GP practices to perform this additional bureaucratic task when they are having to cope with the pandemic and its effects. We are happy to report that following pressure from the GPC this nonsense has been scuppered and all returning doctors are to have their verification carried out on line. If any doctors do still request their practice to do this (they should now have been told not to) then you may advise them they should no longer be contacting their practice for this and must use the online process.