We want to make sure we can support you through your studies.
If you suffer or have suffered from a serious illness (physical or psychological), or have a disability or specific learning difficulty, please let us know. St George’s is committed to supporting our students and will explore all reasonable adjustments to support you to thrive on your course.
Please contact our Disability Advisor as soon as possible with details to help us establish whether your health history or disability is likely to affect your ability to study or practise. This will also give us sufficient time to carry out a detailed assessment, obtain reports and organise additional expert assessments if required.
Covid vaccinations
We do not currently require you to have been vaccinated against Covid-19, but we strongly recommend that you get double vaccinated before the start of your studies, unless medically exempt.
You will be asked to provide details of whether you have or haven’t been vaccinated against Covid-19 on your Occupational Health questionnaire for our records.
If you are yet to be fully vaccinated, first and second doses, as well as boosters, are available to book via the NHS website.
If you have any concerns about having the vaccine, you may wish to submit a question to be answered by a panel of St George’s scientists and clinicians who work with Covid-19 everyday.
Potential changes to Covid vaccination requirements
We are guided by Government guidelines and therefore change our requirements in line with their advice. This means we will introduce a Covid-19 vaccination requirement before, or at, the start of your studies if mandated by the Government.
As you may have seen in the media, a vaccine mandate for NHS staff in England, which was due to come into effect on Friday 1 April 2022, is now being reviewed by the Government. The mandate, which would make full Covid vaccination a compulsory pre-requisite for NHS staff, including healthcare students if they are on any clinical placement which is regulated by the Care Quality Commission, would mean that all students who are not medically exempt would need to be vaccinated against Covid-19 in order to study.
Although the implementation of the mandate has been paused, the University continues to encourage all unvaccinated students, unless medically exempt, to get vaccinated as soon as possible. Vaccination is still the best way to protect yourself, your family, your colleagues and, of course patients from Covid. It remains the position of NHS England and NHS Improvement NHS England that staff, and thus students, have a professional duty to do so.
This information will be updated once the government policy is clear on the requirement for health and care staff to be vaccinated against Covid-19, following the conclusion of the consultation which is now underway. Please be aware that, even if vaccination is not legally mandated, some placement providers may still make it a requirement of working in their clinical setting so it remains beneficial to you to get vaccinated before enrolment.
Covid precautions
We are doing all we can to ensure you feel safe whilst studying at St George’s. We are carefully monitoring Government advice and implementing appropriate measures, these include:
-
Provision of hand-sanitising stations throughout the campus
-
Enhanced cleaning services
-
Provision of testing for staff and students
Latest information due to Covid
You can get up to date information on any general changes by viewing our FAQs.