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Coronavirus resources for NHS staff
Many publishers are making relevant Coronavirus resources freely available to NHS staff. We are collating links on this page and will continue to update these as more come in.
In addition, we are collating useful links to patient care resources, vaccine data and long COVID.
Coronavirus resource links
This is a list of links to synthesized evidence and resources on Coronavirus and on epidemics more broadly. All the information below is freely available for NHS clinicians and staff.
- BMJ Best Practice: corona virus Coronavirus information organised by 6 groups of topics: Summary, Theory, Diagnosis, Management, Follow Up, Resources
- COVID-19 statistics from the Office for National Statistics Latest data and analysis on coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK and its effect on the economy and society.
- Daily case statistics from gov.uk Daily updated statistics on positive cases, hospital admissions and deaths
- Dynamed Covid resources Dynamed summaries are available on the following topics: COVID-19 and Special Populations COVID-19 and Patients With Cancer COVID-19 and Cardiovascular Disease Patients COVID-19 and Patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and End-stage Renal Disease (ESRD) COVID-19 and Pregnant Patients
- NICE Clinical Knowledge Summaries Includes a suspected Coronavirus infection scenario, and a Clinical Resources scenario
- NICE rapid guidelines and evidence reviews Rapid guidelines cover treatment for patients in critical care, receiving kidney dialysis and systemic anti-cancer treatments. Rapid evidence reviews are looking at whether certain medicines increase the severity of COVID-19.
- Oxford COVID-19 Evidence Search Evidence synthesis on topics such as swab accuracy, effectiveness of certain drugs and viral load.
- Public Health England: Finding the evidence A page produced by PHE Knowledge and Library Services team (KLS). The page signposts to a range of open access resources from different groups, and a thrice weekly digest which includes sections on vaccine development, transmission and immunology. Click on the Keeping Up to Date tab to view the digest. Some resources on this page may ask for an Open Athens sign-in
- UpToDate clinical content Open Access guidelines for patients and clinicians
- World Health Organisation global research on Coronavirus WHO is gathering the latest scientific findings and knowledge on coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) and compiling it in a database. They update the database daily from searches of bibliographic databases, hand searches of the table of contents of relevant journals, and the addition of other relevant scientific articles that come to their attention. The entries in the database may not be exhaustive and new research will be added regularly. The database is updated daily, Monday through Friday.
- Omnicron variant daily overview Total case numbers and statistics on hospitalisations from gov.uk
EPPI-Centre: Social Science Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education A living map of the evidence of studies on COVID-19 identified in MEDLINE and EMBASE, that groups the evidence into broad themes
Liang, T., Handbook of Covid-19 Prevention and Treatment, First Affiliated Hospital, Zhejiang University School of Medicine (open access) - (from the editor's note) Faced with an unknown virus, sharing and collaboration are the best remedy...due to the limited time in which this handbook was produced, there may be some errors. Your feedback and advice are highly welcomed.
Coronavirus vaccines
- COVID-19 vaccination programme from NHS England Guidance for Trusts, Primary Care and the procurement of equipment
- COVID-19 vaccination elearning module from HEE This module aims to support NHS staff to promote and deliver the COVID-19 vaccination. Those new or returning to vaccinating will also need to undertake practical training.
- Flu and COVID-19 vaccination resource hub from the Royal College of General Practitioners The latest updates on the COVID-19 vaccine and managing flu vaccinations during the pandemic.
- Vaccines summary from UpToDate Pre-clinical studies, clinical trials, different vaccine approaches and distribution programmes
- UK government vaccinations dashboard Updated statistics and graphs tracking the progress of the UK vaccination programme
Long COVID
- NICE Guideline on long COVID Symptoms and management of long COVID from NICE
- Long COVID elearning from the Royal College of General Practitioners Elearning package (guest access available)
- Long COVID: what you need to know (Royal College of Nurses) Symptoms and management of long COVID, including summary of research being undertaken.
Upskilling, retraining and CPD
The following resources aim to support clinicians who specialise in other areas and may now be coming back to work in intensive care environments. Please note that you will need your NHS OpenAthens details to access ebooks.
Clinical Guidance and learning:
- UpToDate clinical guidelines Includes guidelines on supporting patients with Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), ventilator management strategies and ECMO in adults.
- Coronavirus hub from the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine and partners Information, guidance and resources from the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine, the Intensive Care Society, the Association of Anaesthetists and the Royal College of Anaesthetists
- e-Learning for Healthcare: coronavirus programme Courses in the Coronavirus programme currently include: Essential Guidance from the NHS and Government Infection Prevention and Control Public Health England – Personal Protective Equipment Critical Care Resources
- BMJ Learning: CPD courses (now free) BMJ Learning have made their CPD courses relevant to the treatment of coronavirus freely available for NHS staff.
- COVID-19 Critical Care: Understanding and Application (FutureLearn course) Learn the principles and practice of critical care to treat and care for critically ill patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. By the end of the course, you'll be able to... • Apply the current and evolving principles of personal protective equipment (PPE) in the care of COVID-19 patients. • Apply evidence-based daily practices to care of the critically ill patient. • Reflect critically on the complex elements required to achieve both self-awareness and self-compassion in a high-tension environment. • Apply evidence-based principles of advanced organ support and monitoring to the COVID-19 critically ill patient. • Develop a range of specialised self-caring practices
EBook chapters on intensive care and respiratory disorders:
Intensive and critical care
Irwin & Rippe's Intensive Care Medicine (2016) 7th ed.
- Section IV: Pulmonary Problems in the Intensive Care Unit
- Section VI: Infectious Disease Problems in the Intensive Care Unit
Intensive Care Nursing: a framework for practice (2018), Woodrow, P., 4th ed
Oxford Textbook of Medicine (2020), Firth, J. et al (eds), 6th ed.
Respiratory Disorders
Oxford Textbook of Medicine (2020), Firth, J. et al (eds), 6th ed.
Ventilation
The Respiratory System at a Glance (2015), Ward, JPT et al, 4th ed.
Oxford Handbook of Respiratory Medicine (2009), Chapman, S. et al, 2nd ed.
Further reading:
The Beginner's Guide to Intensive Care : A Handbook for Junior Doctors and Allied Professionals, Arora, N. and Laha, S.K., 2nd ed., (2018)
Essential Respiratory Medicine, Paramothayan, S. (2019)
Clinical Trials and research
- Association of Italian Biomedical Documentalists: research and resources Provides ready made searches for a variety of databases, including PubMed and Embase
- COVID-19 Search Strategy Bank A central repository for literature searches on COVID-19, including ready-made search strategies which can be used in various healthcare databases.
- GIDEON Infectious Diseases This resource has been made available from Ovid via NHS Athens. It contains comprehensive distribution data, endemicity maps with rates per 100,000 persons, detailed descriptions of clinical & laboratory findings, therapy notes, risk groups, and imaging studies. Updated daily.
- NIHR COVID-19 clinical trial updates Dashboard of clinical trials in the pipeline for potential Coronavirus (COVID-19) treatments. Information is also being collected on tests currently in development or commercially available for the diagnosis of COVID-19.
- Cochrane COVID-19 Study Register A regularly updated and annotated reference collection of primary studies on COVID-19
- ZOE COVID study Data on COVID infections and vaccination rates from an ongoing study launched by staff at King's College London