Health and care workers no longer exempt from quarantine rules when arriving in England

A file photo of NHS nurses in Wrexham, Wales
Getty Images

Health and care workers will have to follow quarantine rules when arriving in England from overseas, it has been announced.

The Government's coronavirus guidance website currently lists registered health or care professionals travelling to the UK to provide essential healthcare as those who are exempt from border rules in the UK.

But from Friday all health and care workers will no longer be exempt from quarantine restrictions when arriving in England from overseas.

The move brings them in line with the general public and officials said it would help protect the NHS and social care system from the spread of coronavirus from overseas.

It comes after England’s deputy chief medical officer Professor Jonathan Van-Tam confirmed the length of time people with Covid-19 symptoms in England have to self-isolate for is being increased from seven to 10 days.

He told reporters the change was being made due to the "low but real possibility of infectiousness” between seven and 10 days after the onset of the illness.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock previously said the science had been "developing" and the Government wanted to take a "precautionary approach to make sure that we can keep people in this country as safe as possible".

Mr Hancock earlier warned that a new spike in Covid-19 cases is "clearly" beginning to emerge in Europe as he said "we’ve got to do everything" to prevent it reaching the UK.

“I am worried about a second wave. I think you can see a second wave starting to roll across Europe and we’ve got to do everything we can to prevent it from reaching these shores and to tackle it,” Mr Hancock told Sky News.

He said 10-day isolation measure was "part of that, but so too are the measures we’re taking, for instance, to ensure that we don’t directly bring cases back to this country where there’s a big spike in cases".

“So, absolutely, on a second wave it is something I worry about and I worry about it because we can see it happening," he said.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in