Ball, Simon; Banerjee, Amitava; Berry, Colin; Boyle, Jonathan R; Bray, Benjamin; Bradlow, William; Chaudhry, Afzal; Crawley, Rikki; Danesh, John; Denniston, Alastair; +24 more... Falter, Florian; Figueroa, Jonine D; Hall, Christopher; Hemingway, Harry; Jefferson, Emily; Johnson, Tom; King, Graham; Lee, Kuan Ken; McKean, Paul; Mason, Suzanne; Mills, Nicholas L; Pearson, Ewen; Pirmohamed, Munir; Poon, Michael TC; Priedon, Rouven; Shah, Anoop; Sofat, Reecha; Sterne, Jonathan AC; Strachan, Fiona E; Sudlow, Cathie LM; Szarka, Zsolt; Whiteley, William; Wyatt, Michael; CVD-COVID-UK Consortium; (2020) Monitoring indirect impact of COVID-19 pandemic on services for cardiovascular diseases in the UK. Heart (British Cardiac Society), 106 (24). pp. 1890-1897. ISSN 1355-6037 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/heartjnl-2020-317870
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: To monitor hospital activity for presentation, diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases during the COVID-19) pandemic to inform on indirect effects. METHODS: Retrospective serial cross-sectional study in nine UK hospitals using hospital activity data from 28 October 2019 (pre-COVID-19) to 10 May 2020 (pre-easing of lockdown) and for the same weeks during 2018-2019. We analysed aggregate data for selected cardiovascular diseases before and during the epidemic. We produced an online visualisation tool to enable near real-time monitoring of trends. RESULTS: Across nine hospitals, total admissions and emergency department (ED) attendances decreased after lockdown (23 March 2020) by 57.9% (57.1%-58.6%) and 52.9% (52.2%-53.5%), respectively, compared with the previous year. Activity for cardiac, cerebrovascular and other vascular conditions started to decline 1-2 weeks before lockdown and fell by 31%-88% after lockdown, with the greatest reductions observed for coronary artery bypass grafts, carotid endarterectomy, aortic aneurysm repair and peripheral arterial disease procedures. Compared with before the first UK COVID-19 (31 January 2020), activity declined across diseases and specialties between the first case and lockdown (total ED attendances relative reduction (RR) 0.94, 0.93-0.95; total hospital admissions RR 0.96, 0.95-0.97) and after lockdown (attendances RR 0.63, 0.62-0.64; admissions RR 0.59, 0.57-0.60). There was limited recovery towards usual levels of some activities from mid-April 2020. CONCLUSIONS: Substantial reductions in total and cardiovascular activities are likely to contribute to a major burden of indirect effects of the pandemic, suggesting they should be monitored and mitigated urgently.
Item Type | Article |
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Faculty and Department | Faculty of Epidemiology and Population Health > Dept of Non-Communicable Disease Epidemiology |
Research Centre | Covid-19 Research |
PubMed ID | 33020224 |
Elements ID | 151699 |
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Filename: Monitoring indirect impact of COVID-19 pandemic on services for cardiovascular diseases in the UK.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0
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