
Notification of Infectious Diseases
Registered medical practitioners (RMPs) have a statutory duty to notify the ‘proper officer’ at their local council or local health protection team (HPT) of suspected cases of certain infectious diseases.
Complete a notification form immediately on diagnosis of a suspected notifiable disease. Don’t wait for laboratory confirmation of a suspected infection or contamination before notification. Consult the for further information.
Send the form to the proper officer within 3 days, or notify them verbally within 24 hours if the case is urgent by phone, letter, encrypted email or secure fax machine.
If you need help, contact your local HPT:
Contact details:
PHE West Midlands East Health Protection Team,
5 St Philip’s Place,
Birmingham,
B3 2PW
Referral by email from an NHS.NET email address only: PHE.wme@nhs.net
Phone: 0344 225 3560 option 2
Out of hours for health professionals only: please phone 01384 679 031
List of notifiable diseases
Diseases notifiable to local authority proper officers under the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010:
- Acute encephalitis
- Acute infectious hepatitis
- Acute meningitis
- Acute poliomyelitis
- Anthrax
- Botulism
- Brucellosis
- Cholera
- Diphtheria
- Enteric fever (typhoid or paratyphoid fever)
- Food poisoning
- Haemolytic uraemic syndrome (HUS)
- Infectious bloody diarrhoea
- Invasive group A streptococcal disease
- Legionnaires’ disease
- Leprosy
- Malaria
- Measles
- Meningococcal septicaemia
- Mumps
- Plague
- Rabies
- Rubella
- Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS)
- Scarlet fever
- Smallpox
- Tetanus
- Tuberculosis
- Typhus
- Viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF)
- Whooping cough
- Yellow fever
Report other diseases that may present significant risk to human health under the category ‘other significant disease’.
Laboratories: report notifiable organisms (causative agents)
All laboratories in England performing a primary diagnostic role must notify PHE on the confirmation of a notifiable organism.
Read the guidance for diagnostic laboratories on
.List of notifiable organisms (causative agents)
Causative agents notifiable to PHE under the Health Protection (Notification) Regulations 2010:
- Bacillus anthracis
- Bacillus cereus (only if associated with food poisoning)
- Bordetella pertussis
- Borrelia spp
- Brucella spp
- Burkholderia mallei
- Burkholderia pseudomallei
- Campylobacter spp
- Chikungunya virus
- Chlamydophila psittaci
- Clostridium botulinum
- Clostridium perfringens (only if associated with food poisoning)
- Clostridium tetani
- Corynebacterium diphtheriae
- Corynebacterium ulcerans
- Coxiella burnetii
- Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever virus
- Cryptosporidium spp
- Dengue virus
- Ebola virus
- Entamoeba histolytica
- Francisella tularensis
- Giardia lamblia
- Guanarito virus
- Haemophilus influenzae (invasive)
- Hanta virus
- Hepatitis A, B, C, delta, and E viruses
- Influenza virus
- Junin virus
- Kyasanur Forest disease virus
- Lassa virus
- Legionella spp
- Leptospira interrogans
- Listeria monocytogenes
- Machupo virus
- Marburg virus
- Measles virus
- Mumps virus
- Mycobacterium tuberculosis complex
- Neisseria meningitidis
- Omsk haemorrhagic fever virus
- Plasmodium falciparum, vivax, ovale, malariae, knowlesi
- Polio virus (wild or vaccine types)
- Rabies virus (classical rabies and rabies-related lyssaviruses)
- Rickettsia spp
- Rift Valley fever virus
- Rubella virus
- Sabia virus
- Salmonella spp
- SARS coronavirus
- Shigella spp
- Streptococcus pneumoniae (invasive)
- Streptococcus pyogenes (invasive)
- Varicella zoster virus
- Variola virus
- Verocytotoxigenic Escherichia coli (including E.coli O157)
- Vibrio cholerae
- West Nile Virus
- Yellow fever virus
- Yersinia pestis
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