Impact on emergency and elective hospital-based care in Scotland over the first 12 months of the pandemic: interrupted time-series analysis of national lockdowns
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This analysis is part of the Early Pandemic Evaluation and Enhanced Surveillance of COVID-19 (EAVE II) study. EAVE II is funded by the Medical Research Council (MR/R008345/1) with the support of BREATHE – The Health Data Research Hub for Respiratory Health (MC_PC_19004), which is funded through the UK Research and Innovation Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and delivered through Health Data Research UK. Additional support has been provided through the Scottish Government DG Health and Social Care. SAS and AS are also supported by the COVID-19 Longitudinal Health and Wellbeing National Core Study, funded by the Medical Research Council (MC_PC_20030). SVK acknowledges funding from a NRS Senior Clinical Fellowship (SCAF/15/02), the Medical Research Council (MC_UU_00022/2) and the Scottish Government Chief Scientist Office (SPHSU17). JM is partly funded by the National Institute for Health Research Applied Research Collaboration West (NIHR ARC West). ; Objectives COVID-19 has resulted in the greatest disruption to National Health Service (NHS) care in its over 70-year history. Building on our previous work, we assessed the ongoing impact of pandemic-related disruption on provision of emergency and elective hospital-based care across Scotland over the first year of the pandemic. Design We undertook interrupted time-series analyses to evaluate the impact of ongoing pandemic-related disruption on hospital NHS care provision at national level and across demographics and clinical specialties spanning the period 29 March 2020?28 March 2021. Setting Scotland, UK. Participants Patients receiving hospital care from NHS Scotland. Main outcome measures We used the percentage change of accident and emergency attendances, and emergency and planned hospital admissions during the pandemic compared to the average admission rate for equivalent weeks in 2018-2019. Results As restrictions were ...