Current awareness updates
Interim Clinical Commissioning Policy: Neutralising monoclonal antibodies and intravenous antivirals in the treatment of COVID-19 in hospitalised patients.
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC); 2021.
[This rapid policy statement from 24th December outlines the eligibility criteria for the use of casirivimab with imdevimab or sotrovimab for patients hospitalised with COVID-19, and those with hospital onset COVID-19.]
The European clinical research response to optimise treatment of patients with COVID-19: lessons learned, future perspective, and recommendations.
Goossens H. The Lancet Infectious Diseases 2021;:doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(21)00705-2.
[We discuss how the clinical research community responded to the pandemic in Europe, what lessons were learned, and provide recommendations for future clinical research response during pandemics. We focused on two platform trials: RECOVERY and REMAP-CAP.]
Remote general practitioner consultations during COVID-19.
Green MA. The Lancet Digital Health 2022;4(1):E7.
[[Letter.] Advances in digital technology had already stimulated debate on consultation methods; despite offering convenience for some patients, there were concerns about widening inequalities for others. Given that the pandemic offered a natural experiment to assess the potential implications of remote consultations, we analysed data from NHS Digital to better understand these implications. Our analyses showed that any suggestion that GPs were not seeing patients in person was not true.]
Delivering outpatient virtual clinics during the COVID-19 pandemic: early evaluation of clinicians’ experiences.[Abstract]
Vas V. BMJ Open Quality 2022;11(1):doi: 10.1136/bmjoq-2020-001313.
[Conclusions: In response to the pandemic, outpatient services across the trust were rapidly redesigned and virtual clinics implemented. As a result, services have been able to sustain some level of service delivery. However, clinicians have identified challenges in delivering this model of care and highlighted enablers needed to sustaining the delivery of virtual clinics longer term, such as patient access to diagnostic tests and investigations closer to home.]
CG Report 6: Effects of COVID-19 In Care Homes: A Mixed Methods Review.
Collateral Global; 2021.
[The report, using national datasets for 25 countries on mortality, provides an up-to-date review of global effects of COVID-19 pandemic in care homes, assessing care home mortality by country, how the deaths compared with previous periods, and how excess deaths may be explained.]
Regulation and use of confidential patient information for genomic and medical research during and post Covid-19.
PHG Foundation; 2021.
[At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic the government in England introduced measures to enable the use of confidential patient information for Covid-19 purposes without consent or another form of approval that would normally be required. This report considers how these regulatory changes to the governance of confidential patient information have impacted genomic and medical research, and whether these changes should be integrated into the regulatory framework longer term.]
Frequently asked questions: Demonstrating Covid-19 and vaccination status.
House of Commons Library; 2021.
[This briefing sets out responses to FAQs about demonstrating Covid status (otherwise called Covid status certification or vaccine passports) and use of the NHS Covid Pass in England.]
Clearing the backlog caused by the pandemic: ninth report of Session 2021–22.
House of Commons Health and Social Care Committee; 2021.
[This report finds that elective recovery plans are threatened by pressure on emergency care with a record number of 999 calls and waiting times in emergency departments at record levels. It concludes that tackling the wider backlog caused by the pandemic is a major and ‘unquantifiable’ challenge. It calls for a broad national health and care recovery plan to include mental health, primary care, community care and social care as well as emergency care.]
Telephone survey two: PCNs and Covid-19.
PRUComm; 2021.
[The purpose of the telephone survey was to try to understand the role primary care networks (PCNs) had played in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, focusing on whether the pandemic had influenced and shaped the development and operation of PCNs and whether PCNs had worked collectively or as individual practices in their Covid-19 response. This short report comprises data collected between August and December 2020.]
Inequality and the Covid crisis in the United Kingdom.
Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS); 2022.
[IFS Working Paper W22/01. This report reviews the effects on the Covid-19 pandemic on inequalities in education, the labour market, household living standards, mental health and wealth in the UK.]
Effects of COVID-19 lockdown on eating disorders and obesity: A systematic review and meta-analysis.[Abstract]
Sideli L. European Eating Disorders Review 2021;29(6):826-841.
[The majority of individuals with EDs and obesity reported symptomatic worsening during the lockdown. However, further longitudinal studies are needed to identify vulnerable groups, as well as the long-term consequences of COVID-19.]