Covid Medicines Delivery Unit (CMDU) Service

Our new operating hours are:
Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays - 9:00am - 1:00pm
Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays - CLOSED

Who can have COVID-19 treatment

You are eligible for a COVID-19 treatment assessment, without being admitted to hospital, if all of these apply: you are a highest risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19, you’re aged 12 years or over, you have symptoms of COVID-19, you have tested positive for COVID-19.

For more information about people at the highest risk who are eligible for COVID-19 treatment, please visit here.

  • You may be at highest risk of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 if you have one of the following vulnerabilities:

    • Cancer or have been treated for cancer in the last 12 months

    • Chronic kidney disease (CKD) Stage 4/5

    • Down's syndrome

    • HIV / Aids

    • Inflammatory Disease

    • Liver Disease

    • Neurological Condition: MS, MND, Duchene MD

    • Non-cancerous blood disorder

    • Organ transplant

    • Severe respiratory disease

    • Sickle cell, thalassaemia, or rare inherited anaemia

    • Stem cell transplant

    • People aged 85 years and over

    • Organ Transplant Waiting List

    • Have end-stage heart failure and have a long-term ventricular assistance device.

    • People aged 70 years and over, or who have a BMI which exceeds 35 kg/m2, or diabetes, or heart failure, and:

      • are resident in a care home, or

      • are already hospitalised.

How do I get treatment?

You can be referred into this service by:
-         Contacting NHS 119/111
- Completing the COVID-19 self-referral form at the bottom of this page
-         A referral from your GP
-         A referral from your specialist team at hospital.  

What happens if I am referred?

Once we have received your referral, a clinician will aim to contact you within 48 hours to complete to an initial triage to see if you meet the criteria for antiviral medication. If you meet the criteria to receive the antiviral therapeutic treatments, you will be contacted by one of our GPs to agree a treatment plan with you. A prescription will be issued to a chemist for the appropriate treatment.

If you are under the age of 18, have contracted covid-19 and are identified as part of the highest-risk cohort of patients, your referral may take longer to be dealt with as we need to get specialist input from paediatric teams to ensure that you receive the right treatment.

You may be considered not eligible for antiviral treatment if:
-         Your symptoms started more than 5 days before we have received your referral.
-         You do not meet the nationally laid out criteria as highest-risk patient

Since our CMDU opened in December 2021, (YHP took over in March 2022) we have had up to 70 referrals a day.
It has been necessary to treat less than half of the people referred. This is because not everyone is actually eligible, as their immune system is strong enough to be able to work against COVID-19.
For example, people with asthma or COPD who sometimes take prednisolone for an exacerbation; if the prednisolone dose is a short course only, the person is not considered immunosuppressed. Prednisolone in high dose (e.g. 20 mg per day) for a prolonged time (over 4 weeks) can decrease the immune response.

Some people don’t have many symptoms when they get Covid or they get better very quickly, this means that their immune system is working well to fight the Covid and so they do not meet the criteria on this occasion for treatment either.

What are some available treatments?

  • Paxlovid
    A tablet which stops the virus from reproducing.

  • Molnupiravir
    A tablet that stop the virus from reproducing. You may be prescribed this if you have any issues with your liver. It is an alternative to Paxlovid.

Covid-19 Antiviral Self Referral Portal

If you have had a positive test in the last 2-3 days and you fall into one of the high-risk vulnerable patient categories, please click here to be directed to our self-referral portal to register your COVID-19 test for potential antiviral treatment.

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