OpenSAFELY NHS Service Restoration Observatory 1: primary care clinical activity in England during the first wave of COVID-19.
Br J Gen Pract
; 72(714): e63-e74, 2022 01.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1592598
ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND:
The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted healthcare activity. The NHS stopped non-urgent work in March 2020, later recommending services be restored to near-normal levels before winter where possible.AIM:
To describe the volume and variation of coded clinical activity in general practice, taking respiratory disease and laboratory procedures as examples. DESIGN ANDSETTING:
Working on behalf of NHS England, a cohort study was conducted of 23.8 million patient records in general practice, in situ using OpenSAFELY.METHOD:
Activity using Clinical Terms Version 3 codes and keyword searches from January 2019 to September 2020 are described.RESULTS:
Activity recorded in general practice declined during the pandemic, but largely recovered by September. There was a large drop in coded activity for laboratory tests, with broad recovery to pre-pandemic levels by September. One exception was the international normalised ratio test, with a smaller reduction (median tests per 1000 patients in 2020 February 8.0; April 6.2; September 6.9). The pattern of recording for respiratory symptoms was less affected, following an expected seasonal pattern and classified as 'no change'. Respiratory infections exhibited a sustained drop, not returning to pre-pandemic levels by September. Asthma reviews experienced a small drop but recovered, whereas chronic obstructive pulmonary disease reviews remained below baseline.CONCLUSION:
An open-source software framework was delivered to describe trends and variation in clinical activity across an unprecedented scale of primary care data. The COVD-19 pandemic led to a substantial change in healthcare activity. Most laboratory tests showed substantial reduction, largely recovering to near-normal levels by September, with some important tests less affected and recording of respiratory disease codes was mixed.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Journal:
Br J Gen Pract
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Similar
MEDLINE
...
LILACS
LIS