The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is currently heading a review of vaccine passports and certification for those who have received their Covid-19 vaccines. This is the sort of thing which gets fairly complex, not least because the UK also has to have a dialogue with entities such as the European Union and the World Health Organisation, as well as individual states. For internal purposes the mood music is currently running against certification inside the UK (e.g. to allow going to nightclubs and/or to avoid constant re-testing) out of privacy / discrimination concerns. Plus the emphasis is very much on maximising take up of vaccines because people simply want to have them.
This thread can be updated in a few weeks when the relevant Cabinet sub committee has agreed a solution, I would perhaps expect something in early April. For travel purposes the thinking is to use the existing NHS App to demonstrate vaccination status.
What is less well known is that if you live in England (specifically) this App already securely shows your vaccination status, and this is a step by step guide as to how to get it set up. It's a bit complex but you may want to do some stages now, since two steps requires manual processing, and may take a long while to complete if there is a rush of people getting this information in a few weeks time. You will need your 10 digit NHS number and your passport or driving licence handy. You also need a reasonably modern Android or Apple mobile telephone, with camera facilities, and ideally fingerprint recognition.
Once a decision is made about vaccination passports, I suspect there will be a one-screen QR image / certificate, since as will become apparent, immunisations are buried in with a lot of other records.
1) First download the correct App. In Google Play and Apple Store this is known simply as the NHS App. It is
not the NHS Covid-19 App. Though intended as a phone App, it is also available online at:
https://www.nhsapp.service.nhs.uk/login
2) Open the App, and then chose the login option at the bottom of the entry screen. Set up your details with an email address and password (and in this case, you really should make it a secure password, but later on you can switch on fingerprint recognition if your phone allows that). There is also an email confirmation stage and an SMS exchange, so make sure you are able to handle this.
3) You then need to validate your details by taking a photo of your passport and taking a photo of yourself - both stages within the App. The passport photo can be uploaded from a file, but I don't know how easy this is. Once you have submitted this you need to wait "2 hours" for someone to check and validate it. Actually it is currently taking 2 days, so a bit of patience is needed. More information is here:
https://help.login.nhs.uk/provewhoyouare/withid/
4) At this point you may only see a limited set of your GP records, relating to medicines and allergies - essentially the data which is widely shared within the NHS to cope with emergencies. However there is a final stage which shows more records, including your Covid-19 vaccines. For this you need to send a message to your GP to allow you to have "Coded record access". You can usually make this request within the App, and this gives you visibility on medicines, test records and vaccinations. Your GP surgery has to allow this, in some situations, with smaller GPs, you may need to talk to them about this, since the App is not widely used at the moment. A small number of GP surgeries are not linkable, it affects less than 1% of GPs and usually there is some very local reason for this (e.g. you are in a prison).
Here are some screen shots for you. This shows my Covid vaccination details, I have blanked out the name of my surgery and the name of the person who administered my vaccine.
The AZ vaccine is correct in all particulars, however I notice that my influenza jab below has the wrong date, I was actually vaccinated in October but not by my GP.
The following image shows where to find this, under Consultations and Events. Most people will have a lot more than 8 such records, I'm a bit on the low side. The blue "Your Health" tab on the bottom of the screen will take you to this area.
Finally, this is the screen you need to see to get the coded records access
It's not in an obvious place, you go to the Appointments tab on the bottom of the screen, then Additonal GP Services. After this screen you then get a free text box where you can ask your GP to set you up for full access to the NHS App. Best add your phone number, it's actually a clinical decision whether to grant access, but GPs are firmly encouraged to provide full access.
Once you have done this, you will probably have noticed that actually this App does a lot of things quite niftly, including allowing secure messages from you to your GP, repeat prescriptions and in some cases to book an appointment with your GP.
This webpage also gives some troubleshooting assistance:
https://help.login.nhs.uk/mixedsuppo...ibility-issues