COVID arrival & discharge

Lessons from an undisclosed NHS Trust

Most people are going to assume that COVID cases arriving at A&E departments up and down the country do so in an emergency ambulance with a flashing blue light because this is what they’ve seen on the news. If we take a look at the A&E intake of one sizeable NHS Trust over the period Jan – Sep 2021 we find a total of 3,935 COVID admissions during this period of which 1,615 (41.0%) managed to arrive using public transport or their own car. I am sure that arriving at hospital by bus isn’t exactly what the public have in mind, nor is it something the Behavioural Insights Team would care to become known. So let us look at discharge…

We know the discharge destination for 3,792 of those 3,935 COVID admissions to A&E and may be equally surprised to learn that 1,740 (45.9%) were discharged home the same day (with or without treatment). Of those being discharged home the same day some 58 received respiratory procedures in A&E (3.3%), this leaving 1,682 who returned home without any form of resp…