Firstly we want to recognise the work of everyone in health and social care. Your efforts ensure people are able to receive care and the delivery of the vaccination programme.
We shared a previous update with you on the 21 December outlining our regulatory approach. Including postponing inspections of services that are delivering or supporting delivery of the booster programme, except where there is evidence of risk to life, or the immediate risk of serious harm to people.
This will remain our approach for the rest of January.
We have taken this decision to ensure that our approach remains appropriate and proportionate. Our focus will always be on supporting services to ensure people receive safe care. But we also recognise we need to respond to the severe pressures under which many parts of the health and social care system are working.
We also recognise that the priority for all providers is to deliver safe, good quality care to people who use their services. We will support providers that are taking balanced, risk-based decisions in partnership with people who use health and social care to maintain access to services and keep them as safe as possible in response to system pressures.
Our approach will be kept under continual review and we will continue to update providers of any changes.
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