Basic guidance
Coronavirus (Covid 19) advice in 24 languages, from Doctors of the World and British Red Cross, including English, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Bengali, Bulgarian, Czech, Dari, Farsi, French, Gujarati, Greek, Hindi, Italian, Hungarian, Kurdish Sorani, Lithuanian, Malayalam, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Pashto, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, Romanian, Sindhi, Slovak, Spanish, Somali, Tigrinya, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese. Find them here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=193qQN9l04Dvf0N9L5zeWTiXK_DRbrAxg.
Public Health England also published Covid-19 guidance in different languages.
For Government updates and advice, see Coronavirus (COVID-19): what you need to do
Health
For health information and advice, read NHS pages on coronavirus.
Public Health England guidance on registration of patients, including those with no fixed address, asylum seekers and refugees (PHE Communication COVID -19 ) includes: Practices should continue to register new patients, including those with no fixed address, asylum seekers and refugees. … We would like to remind GP practices that the absence of photo identification or a fixed address is not a reason to refuse a patient registration. Homeless patients should be registered either at a c/o address where one is available (eg a shelter/ support service) or the GP practice address. We can assure practices using the GP practice address as a c/o does not place responsibility on the practice to repatriate correspondence (eg hospital letters).
Asylum and refugees
For asylum and resettlement policy and practice see the Refugee Council web page noting key temporary changes to asylum and resettlement policy and practice, updated daily. On their site (not here) you can click on each topic to find out more. Last updated at 11:15am, on 14th July 2020
The Right to Remain Toolkit web site has a useful new section on evidence.
Gov factsheet on asylum applications and accommodation, updated 26 April
Govt. advice for UK visa applicants and temporary UK residents: “If you’re in the UK and your leave expires between 24 January 2020 and 31 May 2020: Your visa will be extended to 31 May 2020 if you cannot leave the UK because of travel restrictions or self-isolation related to coronavirus (COVID-19). You must contact the Coronavirus Immigration Team (CIT) to update your records if your visa is expiring” (from website on 27 March 2020 – check for updates at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-advice-for-uk-visa-applicants-and-temporary-uk-residents )
Govt advice to local authorities about children’s social care services includes this section on unaccompanied asylum seeking children
Migrant Help webpage explains how they are now working. This includes:
- “We ask for support from our sector and the community to help direct our clients appropriately, particularly in encouraging clients to use our free national telephone line (0808 8010 503) for asylum queries.
- “With our social enterprise subsidiary, Clear Voice, we are providing pro-bono translations of key Covid-19 information for selected partners. We also have a phone app that allows interpretation services without having the interpreter present.”
Housing
Chartered Institute of Housing has a good webpage Coronavirus – how does it affect migrants’ access to housing and benefits?
All Chartered Institute of Housing fact sheets related to Covid-19 can be found at: https://cihnews.org/p/YRX-FXV/our-approach-to-covid-19