Better use of data needed to tackle NHS backlogs

A major success of the UK's COVID-19 response has been the use of up-to-date, publicly available data - now this approach must be widened to tackle the indirect and long-term effects of the pandemic, according to a new study by a UK-wide team led by a UCL researcher. COVID-19 has had a disastrous impact on hospital waiting lists in the UK. NHS backlogs now affect over six million people. The new paper, published by researchers from London, Belfast and Edinburgh in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, emphasises the critical need to tackle backlogs in cardiovascular disease and cancer, which together kill more than 300,000 people in the UK each year. Data intelligence is the key, the authors argue. They highlight how they have used data to show that in the early first wave of the pandemic total admissions and emergency department attendances for heart disease dropped by over 50%, urgent referrals for cancer dropped by over 70% and chemotherapy attendances by over 40%. Lead author Professor Amitava Banerjee (UCL Institute of Health Informatics), also an honorary consultant cardiologist at Barts Health NHS Trust, said: "We need to get to grips with the current crisis.