The impact of COVID-19 on national screening programmes in England.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT: Objectives
This study aimed to review the trends in adult national screening programme performance in England before and during the COVID-19 pandemic and consider the future implications.Study design
This was a quantitative, longitudinal study.Methods
Publicly available data on quarterly uptake of the five adult screening programmes in England were obtained from Public Health England. Trends from 2017 to 2021 were reviewed and discussed.Results
From 2019 to 2020 Q4, there were substantial reductions in performance in four of the five national screening programmes that were not in keeping with recent trends.Conclusion
The reductions in screening performance coincide with the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic in England and may be explained by the temporary suspension of national screening programmes, and the inability or unwillingness of invitees to partake in screening once the programmes had been restored. Because of the delay in publication of the analysed data, further COVID-19 lockdowns in recent months make it probable that the current true screening performance figures are substantially lower than those presented in this article. The impact on screening programme performance is likely to be detrimental to patient outcomes, meaning remedial action is urgently required.
SUBMITTER: Armitage RC
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8318685 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description: Not available
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Project description:BackgroundEngland's COVID-19 response transitioned from a national lockdown to localised interventions. In response to rising cases, these were supplemented by national restrictions on contacts (the Rule of Six), then 10 pm closing for bars and restaurants, and encouragement to work from home. These were quickly followed by a 3-tier system applying different restrictions in different localities. As cases continued to rise, a second national lockdown was declared. We used a national survey to quantify the impact of these restrictions on epidemiologically relevant contacts.MethodsWe compared paired measures on setting-specific contacts before and after each restriction started and tested for differences using paired permutation tests on the mean change in contacts and the proportion of individuals decreasing their contacts.ResultsFollowing the imposition of each measure, individuals tended to report fewer contacts than they had before. However, the magnitude of the changes was relatively small and variable. For instance, although early closure of bars and restaurants appeared to have no measurable effect on contacts, the work from home directive reduced mean daily work contacts by 0.99 (95% confidence interval CI] 0.03-1.94), and the Rule of Six reduced non-work and school contacts by a mean of 0.25 (0.01-0.5) per day. Whilst Tier 3 appeared to also reduce non-work and school contacts, the evidence for an effect of the lesser restrictions (Tiers 1 and 2) was much weaker. There may also have been some evidence of saturation of effects, with those who were in Tier 1 (least restrictive) reducing their contacts markedly when they entered lockdown, which was not reflected in similar changes in those who were already under tighter restrictions (Tiers 2 and 3).ConclusionsThe imposition of various local and national measures in England during the summer and autumn of 2020 has gradually reduced contacts. However, these changes are smaller than the initial lockdown in March. This may partly be because many individuals were already starting from a lower number of contacts.
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