ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2022
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.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Hospital ward transitions and outcomes in critical care survivors: A multi-hospital cohort study.Journal of the Intensive Care Society · 2026Article
- The impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on primary care contact among vulnerable populations in England: a controlled interrupted time-series study.BJGP open · 2025Article
- Epidemiological and microbial trends of infective endocarditis in western Norway: a 7-year prospective observational study.BMC infectious diseases · 2024Observational
- Rural and Urban patients' Requirements and Experiences of Out-of-hours medical care after cancer (RUREO): a questionnaire study.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Changes in the epidemiological characteristics of prehospital emergency services before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, Chengdu, 2016-2021.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Solutions for a struggling service.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
17 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesCOVID-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.
designWe 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.
settingScotland, UK.
participantsPatients receiving hospital care from NHS Scotland.
main outcome measuresWe 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.
resultsAs restrictions were gradually lifted in Scotland after the first lockdown, hospital-based admissions increased approaching pre-pandemic levels. Subsequent tightening of restrictions in September 2020 were associated with a change in slope of relative weekly admissions rate: -1.98% (-2.38, -1.58) in accident and emergency attendance, -1.36% (-1.68, -1.04) in emergency admissions and -2.31% (-2.95, -1.66) in planned admissions. A similar pattern was seen across sex, socioeconomic status and most age groups, except children (0-14 years) where accident and emergency attendance, and emergency admissions were persistently low over the study period.
conclusionsWe found substantial disruption to urgent and planned inpatient healthcare provision in hospitals across NHS Scotland. There is the need for urgent policy responses to address continuing unmet health needs and to ensure resilience in the context of future pandemics.
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