NHS now to acknowledge those actually sick with covid19 and not just those who test positive whilst in hospital

[Amity Island]

NHS told to identify patients actually sick from Covid-19 separately to those testing positive

Exclusive: Changes to the way hospitals collect data will make the impact of the virus on the NHS look better

www.independent.co.uk

Hospitals have been told to change the way they collect data on patients infected with coronavirus to differentiate between those actually sick with symptoms and those who test positive while seeking treatment for something else.

The move would reduce the overall number of patients in hospital for coronavirus as until now data from hospitals has included all patients who tested positive for Covid-19, regardless of whether they had symptoms or not.



NHS England has instructed hospitals to make the change to the daily flow of data sent by NHS trusts and told The Independent that the move was being done to help analyse the effect of the vaccine programme and whether it was successfully reducing Covid-19 sickness.

 

[mikeyB]

I can’t be arsed to register with The Independent to read the rest of the story, to be perfectly honest.

 

[AndBreathe]

NHS told to identify patients actually sick from Covid-19 separately to those testing positive

Exclusive: Changes to the way hospitals collect data will make the impact of the virus on the NHS look better

www.independent.co.uk

Hospitals have been told to change the way they collect data on patients infected with coronavirus to differentiate between those actually sick with symptoms and those who test positive while seeking treatment for something else.

The move would reduce the overall number of patients in hospital for coronavirus as until now data from hospitals has included all patients who tested positive for Covid-19, regardless of whether they had symptoms or not.



NHS England has instructed hospitals to make the change to the daily flow of data sent by NHS trusts and told The Independent that the move was being done to help analyse the effect of the vaccine programme and whether it was successfully reducing Covid-19 sickness.

I saw this article, but thus far haven't seen anywhere a date for adopting the new approach. Have you seen anything?

 

[Bruce Stephens]

I also don't subscribe to The Independent. (Though it's a perfectly good newspaper as far as I'm aware.)

This is a comment from a reddit thread about it suggesting it likely won't change the figures much. Another comment I've seen is that actually the proposed change is what most hospitals have been doing anyway, so this is really a reminder rather than a change.

 

[Bruce Stephens]

This resembles a change in the definition of a “case” by the CDC in America, where an infection in a vaccinated person is now only a “case” when the person is hospitalised or dies, whereas with the unvaccinated any positive PCR test still counts as a “case”, no matter how mild or asymptomatic.

We should perhaps do that, too. I think the CDC's advice is that people who are fully vaccinated shouldn't normally be tested for the virus if they're asymptomatic, for example.

Turns out if I read the article without javascript enabled I can read it. This seems to be the (perfectly reasonable, I think) change:

In a letter to hospital bosses on 7 June, shared with The Independent, NHS England’s Covid incident director, Professor Keith Willett, said that from now on NHS England wanted a “a breakdown of the current stock of Covid patients into those who are in hospital with acute Covid-19 symptoms (and for whom Covid-19 is the primary reason for being in hospital); and those who are primarily in hospital for a reason other than Covid-19 (but for whom the hospital is having to manage and treat the Covid-19 symptoms alongside their primary condition).”​

​

He added: “In lay terms this could be considered as a binary split between those in hospital ‘for Covid-19’ and those in hospital ‘with Covid-19’. We are asking for this binary split for those patients newly admitted to hospital and those newly diagnosed with Covid while in hospital.”​

​

It's noted that this is also partly to judge the effect of vaccinating older people in that if many of the infected people in hospital are younger, it's possible that a number of them are in hospital for something else and just have the infection coincidentally.