Vulnerable people in England who have been asked to remain at home since the coronavirus lockdown began are to be allowed outdoors once a day with members of their household from Monday.
In Wales, people have been asked to shield until 15 June and in Northern Ireland and Scotland people have been advised to shield for at least 12 weeks from when they were first told to do so.
Around 2.2 million people were asked to stay at home as lockdown began, because they were identified as being at particularly high risk of needing hospital treatment for coronavirus symptoms.
Not all elderly people were asked to shield.
However, he urged the public to be "sensible and proportionate with the freedom we have wanted to give people", saying the UK is "at a dangerous moment" and the easing of lockdown "has to go slowly"
Reacting to the change, Phil Anderson from the MS Society said thousands of the more than 130,000 people with MS in the UK had been feeling "forgotten" after months of shielding
He said they were concerned the news had come "out of the blue" and extremely vulnerable people would want to hear "a lot more about the scientific evidence showing this will be safe for them"
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