The Effect of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Workload of an Adult Major Trauma Centre in Northern Ireland.

INTRODUCTION: Based in Belfast, the Royal Victoria Hospital is the only Major Trauma Centre in Northern Ireland. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on 23rd March 2020, Northern Ireland was placed into 'lockdown' with the majority of the population advised to "stay at home". The objective of this paper is to identify what effect the lockdown restrictions had on the workload of the Major Trauma Service at the Royal Victoria Hospital. METHOD: Patients were identified at the orthopaedic trauma meetings and from direct referral to the Major Trauma Service (MTS). Patients admitted and seen by the MTS from 23/03/20, the day lockdown was announced, to 29/05/20, when restrictions were partially lifted, were included in the analysis. Admissions data from this time period was then compared to admissions data from the same period in 2019 (23/03/19 - 29/05/19). RESULTS: When comparing pre-lockdown and lockdown groups there was an overall decrease of 26% in admissions to the MTS (n=57 vs n=42). Road Traffic Accidents were reduced by 53% (n=31 vs n=15) and falls from >2m were reduced by 29% (n=21 vs n=15). CONCLUSION: Overall the number of admissions to the major trauma service was reduced during the lockdown period. A significant proportion of the reduction may be a result of social restrictions that reduced volume of traffic on Northern Irelands roads. Further study of future lockdowns and including admissions data of other MTCs in the UK would allow us to draw more robust conclusions.

Symptoms, spirometry, exhaled nitric oxide, and asthma exacerbations in clinical practice.

BACKGROUND: Patient symptoms, spirometry measurements, exacerbation rates, and exhaled nitric oxide (FE(NO)) levels have all been used to quantify asthma severity. OBJECTIVE: To determine the relationships among these disease surrogates in clinical practice. METHODS: Data were collected from 5 primary care asthma clinics on patient symptoms, reliever use, spirometry measurements, maintenance pharmacotherapy, disease severity (British Thoracic Society treatment step), and FE(NO) level. Exacerbation data (asthma-related unscheduled health care contact or rescue oral corticosteroid therapy) for the 12 months before and 3 months after the clinic visit were then obtained. RESULTS: A total of 267 adult asthmatic patients (mean [SEM] age, 51.6 [1.1] years; forced expiratory volume in 1 second, 86.3% [1.2%] of predicted) participated, and 157 exacerbations were captured. For the 12 months before the clinic visit, exacerbation rate was positively correlated with dose of inhaled corticosteroid (P < .001), treatment step (P < .001), reliever use (P = .002), and symptom score (P < .001) but was negatively correlated with FE(NO) level (P = .04); only symptom scores correlated with exacerbation rate in the 3 months after the visit. Levels of FE(NO) were significantly lower in frequently exacerbating patients receiving higher doses of maintenance inhaled corticosteroids compared with patients with mild disease who were corticosteroid naive (19.7 vs 40.4 ppb, P < .001). Measurement of FE(NO) was an insensitive method (sensitivity, 66.7%; specificity, 51.9% at a cutoff value of 20 ppb) for identifying patients who subsequently exacerbated. CONCLUSION: Levels of FE(NO) are paradoxically decreased in patients with more severe asthma and frequent exacerbations and may, therefore, be of limited utility in primary care.