Advice on prioritisation of cases from the four Royal Colleges of Surgery
11 April 2020
Re-starting non-urgent trauma and orthopaedic care: Summary and Full guidance documents
12 May 2020
During the first phase of the Coronavirus pandemic in the UK, the focus for Trauma and Orthopaedics has been on maintaining the trauma service and managing emergency and urgent conditions. As we enter the second phase of the response, there has been a step down in the requirements for managing COVID-19 infections in hospital with the return of facilities and staff availability to enable the planning of non-urgent orthopaedic work. The British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) has produced guidance on a range of issues raised by this shift towards ‘the next phase’. Please see opposite for a links to the summary document and full documents on this subject.
NHS Guidelines to hospitals
14th May 2020
As surgical services restart, the NHS has published a document providing guidelines to hospitals. The document says that patients coming in for an operation – and their households – must self-isolate for fourteen days prior to admission. It further stipulates that “as and when feasible” this should be supplemented with a pre-admission test for COVID-19.
Useful background reading
Two excellent articles by Dr Penny Ward reviewing current knowledge concerning SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 disease including:
Epidemiology of the outbreak
SARS-CoV-2 viral life cycle and clinical features of COVID-19 Disease
Current Treatment
Vaccine development
Antiviral treatments