OpenSAFELY Service Restoration Observatory Monthly Dashboard: Eleven key measures for monitoring general practice clinical activity during COVID-19
- Description
- This report describing trends and variation in clinical activity codes using a set of key measures indicative of overall activity to evaluate NHS service restoration throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. This analysis is run on data for patients registered at a TPP practice. This covers 40% of the population of England. For details on the results presented here, please refer to the main report or to the accompanying preprint linked below.
- Authors
- Louis Fisher, Helen J. Curtis, Richard Croker, Milan Wiedemann, Victoria Speed, Christopher Wood, Andrew Brown, Lisa EM Hopcroft, Rose Higgins, Jon Massey, Peter Inglesby, Caroline E. Morton, Alex J. Walker, Jessica Morley, Amir Mehrkar, Seb Bacon, George Hickman, Orla Macdonald, Tom Lewis, Marion Wood, Martin Myers, Miriam Samuel, Robin Conibere, Wasim Baqir, Harpreet Sood, Charles Drury, Kiren Collison, Chris Bates, David Evans, Iain Dillingham, Tom Ward, Simon Davy, Rebecca M. Smith, William Hulme, Amelia Green, John Parry, Frank Hester, Sam Harper, Jonathan Cockburn, Shaun O'Hanlon, Alex Eavis, Richard Jarvis, Dima Avramov, Paul Griffiths, Aaron Fowles, Nasreen Parkes, Brian MacKenna, Ben Goldacre
- Contact
- Get in touch and tell us how you use this report or new features you'd like to see: team@opensafely.org
- First published
- 08 Jul 2022
- Last released
- 30 May 2023
- Links
Summary of results
These key measures demonstrated substantial changes in clinical activity throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. Six of the measures recovered to their pre-pandemic baseline within a year of the pandemic, showing a rapid, adaptive response by primary care in the midst of a global health pandemic. The remaining five measures showed a more sustained drop in activity; asthma and COPD reviews did not recover to their pre-pandemic baseline until around August 2021 and blood pressure monitoring, cardiovascular disease risk assessment and medication reviews had a sustained drop in activity that persisted up to December 2021. Since December 2021 activity rates have recovered to (or in some cases above) the pre-pandemic baseline for measures involving blood tests including cholesterol, liver function, thyroid, full blood counts, HbA1c, and renal function testing as well as for medication review activity.
Findings in context
Discussion of the specific causes and reasons for the changes in narrow measures of clinical activity we have described is best addressed through quantitative analyses that identify practices in high and low deciles to approach for targeted qualitative interviews with patients and front line staff. However we believe the following broad points may help aid interpretation. Our measures reflect only a few areas of high volume clinical activity; decreases may reflect appropriate prioritisation of other clinical activity. For example NHS Health Checks, which are used to detect early signs of high blood pressure, heart disease or type 2 diabetes, were paused during the pandemic; this is likely to explain the sustained drop in activity in cardiovascular disease risk assessment and blood pressure monitoring. However, in specific cases this may reflect changes in the style of delivery of a clinical activity, rather than the volume: for example, where patients record their own blood pressure at home since, as we have previously highlighted, home monitoring of blood pressure may not be recorded completely or consistently in GP records. In addition, not all reductions should be interpreted as problematic: as part of the COVID-19 recovery, health systems are aiming to be more resilient, responsive and sustainable; complete recovery may not always be appropriate and reductions in clinical activity across some domains may reflect rational reprioritisation of activity. Where these changes in priority have not been nationally planned, data analyses such as ours may help to rapidly identify the pragmatic changes in prioritisation being made by individual dispersed organisations or people across the healthcare ecosystem before those changes are explicitly surfaced or discussed through other mechanisms. For more detail, please see our preprint here.
The following key measures are provided:
Blood Pressure Monitoring¶
The codes used for this measure are available in this codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
A commonly-used assessment used to identify patients with hypertension or to ensure optimal treatment for those with known hypertension. This helps ensure appropriate treatment, with the aim of reducing long term risks of complications from hypertension such as stroke, myocardial infarction and kidney disease.
Caveats
We use codes which represent results reported to GPs so tests requested but not yet reported are not included. Only test results returned to GPs are included, which will usually exclude tests requested while a person is in hospital and other settings like a private clinic.
Cardiovascular Disease 10 year Risk Assessment¶
The codes used for this measure are available in this codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
A commonly-used risk assessment used to identify patients with an increased risk of cardiovascular events in the next 10 years. This helps ensure appropriate treatment, with the aim of reducing long term risks of complications such as stroke or myocardial infarction.
Cholesterol Testing¶
The codes used this measure are available in Codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
A commonly-used blood test used as part of a routine cardiovascular disease 10 year risk assessment and also to identify patients with lipid disorders (e.g. familial hypercholesterolaemia). This helps ensure appropriate treatment, with the aim of reducing long term risks of complications such as stroke or myocardial infarction.
Caveats
We use codes which represent results reported to GPs so tests requested but not yet reported are not included. Only test results returned to GPs are included, which will usually exclude tests requested while a person is in hospital and other settings like a private clinic.
Liver Function Testing - Alanine Transferaminase (ALT)¶
The codes used for this measure are available in this codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
An ALT blood test is one of a group of liver function tests (LFTs) which are used to detect problems with the function of the liver. It is often used to monitor patients on medications which may affect the liver or which rely on the liver to break them down within the body. They are also tested for patients with known or suspected liver dysfunction.
Caveats
In a small number of places, an ALT test may NOT be included within a liver function test. We use codes which represent results reported to GPs so tests requested but not yet reported are not included. Only test results returned to GPs are included, which will usually exclude tests requested while a person is in hospital and other settings like a private clinic.
Thyroid Testing¶
The codes used for this measure are available in this codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
TSH is used for the diagnosis and monitoring of hypothyroidism and hyperthyroidism, including making changes to thyroid replacement therapy dosing.
Caveats
We use codes which represent results reported to GPs so tests requested but not yet reported are not included. Only test results returned to GPs are included, which will usually exclude tests requested while a person is in hospital and other settings like a private clinic.
Full Blood Count - Red Blood Cell (RBC) Testing¶
The codes used for this measure are available in this codelist.
What is it and why does it matter?
RBC is completed as part of a group of tests referred to as a full blood count (FBC), used to detect a variety of disorders of the blood, such as anaemia and infection.
Caveats
We use codes which represent results reported to GPs so tests requested but not yet reported are not included. Only test results returned to GPs are included, which will usually exclude tests requested while a person is in hospital and other settings like a private clinic.