I've not seen it elsewhere, only in today's Guardian, but yesterday Nice issued some guidelines for doctors & nurses for dealing with critical care, cancer care & dialysis care.
Have they been announced in general?
It's still up on The Guardian website but tucked away in the UK section, not the huge section about Coronavirus. I don't know how to put a link into the Mumsnet App so I've copied it over.
Guidelines to help UK doctors and nurses know the best course of treatment for patients amid the coronavirus pandemic have been published.
The first three “rapid guidelines” from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice) consider patients in critical care, those having kidney dialysis and people being treated for cancer.
There have been concerns the UK does not have enough intensive care beds to cope with the number of people who will fall ill, and that the country could end up in a similar situation to Italy, where doctors have been forced to choose which patients get a bed.
Recent footage from inside the main hospital in Bergamo, the country’s main affected area, showed doctors and nurses rushing between patients in a packed ward, with other people on trolleys in a corridor.
Earlier this week, the health select committee chairman, Jeremy Hunt, asked whether the “absolutely heartbreaking” scenes from northern Italy would happen in England and about guidance for medics.
In response, the NHS national medical director, Stephen Powis, said the health service and government were doing “everything we possibly can not to get into that circumstance”.
Powis said doctors made clinical decisions every day and “what we want to be able to do is to support doctors to make those continued decisions on the basis that they are currently making them”.
The new guidelines, which were published on Saturday and are the fastest ever to be produced by Nice, say all patients admitted to hospital should still be assessed as usual for frailty “irrespective of Covid-19 status”.
For those who test positive for the virus, decisions about them being admitted to critical care should consider the medical benefit, taking into account the likelihood of the person’s recovery.
In its guidance on clinical decision-making, Nice advises medics to “base decisions on admission of individual adults to critical care on the likelihood of their recovery, taking into account the likelihood that a person will recover from their critical care admission to an outcome that is acceptable to them”.
For cancer patients, medics will need to balance the risks of the patient not being treated in the usual way against the risk of them becoming seriously ill through coronavirus due to a weakened immune system, the guidelines state.
Workarounds could include treatment being offered at different locations, patients having longer breaks between treatments and delivering treatments in different forms, the document adds.
Kidney dialysis patients suspected of having the virus could have their treatment delayed until their test results are known.
The guidance also recommends transport services are checked and alternative arrangements made where necessary, if the normal provider refuses to transport patients confirmed to have Covid-19.
Further updated guidelines are expected in the coming weeks on symptom management, radiotherapy patients and those with rheumatoid arthritis.