Together with the Royal College of Physicians patient safety committee and the NHSE/I patient safety team we have developed a new NHS Steroid Emergency Card for adrenal insufficiency patients. It is an NHS wide card (England and the devolved nations) supported by this recently published Guidance. All is now in place and the NHS Steroid Emergency card is now available to order from 18 August 2020.

 

As this is a new card various organisations across the NHS are working together to enable implementation. The new cards will need to be ordered so there may be a wait until cards are physically in stock and available to be handed out. We know many GP and hospital appointments are telephone clinics for the time being, hence community pharmacy teams will initially be issuing most of these cards whilst we are working within COVID-19 contingency plans.

 

There will be 3 ways of obtaining a card:

The card can also be downloaded as a pdf, and/or added as a lock screen to mobile devices. Learn more from the Addison's Disease Self-help Group. 

 

The new card can be ordered after 18 August through the usual NHS ordering mechanisms. 

Our adrenal crisis webpage is a source of all the relevant information including publishd guidance,  dowloadable pdf of the card and links to patient educational resources. The QR code on the card goes directly to the adrenal crisis webpage. Email [email protected] for more information.