Weickert, Martin O, Robbins, Tim, Kyrou, Ioannis, Hopper, Adam, Pearson, Eilish, Barber, Thomas M, Kaltsas, Gregory and Randeva, Harpal S (2021). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on neuroendocrine tumour services in England. Endocrine, 71 (1), pp. 14-19.
Abstract
Purpose: During the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been particular concerns regarding the related impact on specialist tumour services. Neuroendocrine tumour (NET) services are delivered in a highly specialised setting, typically delivered in a small number of centres that fulfil specific criteria as defined by the European Neuroendocrine Tumour Society (ENETS). We aimed to address the COVID-19-related impact on specialist NET tumour services in England and other countries. Methods: Electronic survey addressing patient access and delivery of care distributed to all ENETS Centres of Excellence (CoE) in England and matching number of ENETS CoE elsewhere. Semi-quantitative and qualitative analyses of survey responses were performed. Results: Survey response of ENETS CoE in England was 55% (6/11). Responses from six non-UK ENETS CoE elsewhere were received and analysed in a similar manner. Relevant disruption of various NET services was noted across all responding Centres, which included delayed patient appointments and investigations, reduced availability of treatment modalities including delayed surgical treatment and a major negative impact on research activities. The comparison between English and non-UK ENETS CoE suggested that the former had significantly greater concerns related to future research funding (p = 0.014), whilst having less disruption to multidisciplinary meetings (p = 0.01). A trend was also noted towards virtual patient appointments in ENETS CoE in England vs. elsewhere (p = 0.092). Conclusions: Restoration of highly specialised NET services following COVID-19 and planning for future service delivery and research funding must take account of the severe challenges encountered during the pandemic.
Publication DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s12020-020-02564-2 |
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Divisions: | College of Health & Life Sciences > Aston Medical School |
Additional Information: | This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Uncontrolled Keywords: | COVID-19,Centres of Excellence,Neuroendocrine tumours,Service disruption,Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism,Endocrinology |
Publication ISSN: | 1559-0100 |
Last Modified: | 16 Aug 2024 07:07 |
Date Deposited: | 22 Sep 2023 13:30 |
Full Text Link: | |
Related URLs: |
https://link.sp ... 020-020-02564-2
(Publisher URL) http://www.scop ... tnerID=8YFLogxK (Scopus URL) |
PURE Output Type: | Article |
Published Date: | 2021-01 |
Published Online Date: | 2021-01-05 |
Accepted Date: | 2020-11-22 |
Authors: |
Weickert, Martin O
Robbins, Tim Kyrou, Ioannis ( ![]() Hopper, Adam Pearson, Eilish Barber, Thomas M Kaltsas, Gregory Randeva, Harpal S |