Plans to add eight new conditions to the list of diseases that doctors will be required to report will come into force on 6 April.
The expansion of the list of notifiable diseases will strengthen local and national surveillance and improve outbreak response, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said.
Pulse had already reported that GPs were concerned about the workload implications of having to report cases of chicken pox – one of the eight new conditions added.
But in a webinar to GPs earlier this year, UKHSA said the addition of chickenpox to the list was ‘absolutely essential’ in order to monitor the effectiveness of a future varicella vaccination programme.
NHS England has said the ‘potential’ introduction of a varicella vaccine could be launched in January 2026, subject to ‘final ministerial agreement’.
In addition to chickenpox, medical professionals will now be required Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), zoonotic influenza strains, congenital syphilis, and neonatal herpes.
The remaining conditions now on the notifiable diseases list are acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) or acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), disseminated gonococcal infection and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
Laboratories processing human samples in England have also been given ten new causative agents they must report to the UKHSA that include non-human influenza A subtypes, norovirus, respiratory syncytial virus, and tick-borne encephalitis virus
The changes have been made after a public consultation and assessment done by UKHSA and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to ‘enhance surveillance capabilities for current and emerging infectious diseases’.
Dr William Welfare, director of health protection operations at UKHSA, said: ‘These expanded reporting requirements will strengthen our ability to detect and respond to infectious disease outbreaks quickly and effectively.
‘Robust disease surveillance is vital for effective public health response and the data gathered through this system is crucial for developing and implementing timely public health interventions and protecting communities across England.’
UKHSA said it had recently introduced an electronic NOIDs system, allowing medical professionals to submit notifications online that would enable them to respond more quickly to health threats and would be less of a burden of reporting for healthcare professionals.
The idea of reporting chickpox is not well thought out.
Many cases don’t reach GP surgeries thanks to the very good educational support we have given parents and patients over the years so they self manage this with pharmacy support, unless complications.
We don’t need or want to overwhelm GP appointments with unnecessary attendance for chickpox which is self limiting in most cases.
Surprised anyone has time to faff about with notifications.
Workload implications of new additions – zero.
Chicken pox notification is peculiar. We sometimes see it on our triage list and respond with a text about self-care. Would we be expected to notify that? Are parents going to notify? The vast majority would never come near a GP. Is this about strengthening the arguments for/against a vaccine?