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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on electronic referrals to rapid access clinics for suspected breast, lung and prostate cancers in Ireland

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posted on 2024-11-25, 18:11 authored by Niamh Bambury, Mengyang Zhang, Triona McCarthy, Ian Dawkins, Louise BurkeLouise Burke, Paula Tierney, Paul M Walsh, Patrick RedmondPatrick Redmond, Maeve MulloolyMaeve Mullooly, Deirdre Murray, Kathleen BennettKathleen Bennett

Background: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impacted cancer services worldwide. We examined the effect of the first three pandemic waves on the number of electronic (e)-referrals to rapid access clinics (RACs) for breast, lung and prostate cancer in Ireland.

Methods: This study used a retrospective, repeated cross-sectional design. The predicted weekly number of e-referrals by suspected cancer types from March 2020 to May 2021 was calculated using the Holt-Winters seasonal smoothing method, based on the observed numbers from a representative pre-pandemic period (01 January 2019 to 01 March 2020) and compared this with the observed number across the first three pandemic waves (02 March 2020 to 09 May 2021). Percentage differences were calculated between observed and predicted numbers of e-referrals for the three RACs and patterns were examined in each wave.

Results: Observed e-referrals were lower than predicted for all three RACs in the first wave of the pandemic (15.7% lower for breast, 39.5% lower for lung and 28.1% lower for prostate) with varying levels of recovery in the second and third waves for the three e-referral types.

Conclusions: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted patterns of e-referrals to RACs in the first three pandemic waves in Ireland. Early identification of changes in engagement with health services, such as a decrease in primary care presentations with a resultant decrease in e-referrals to RACs can allow for a rapid response from cancer control programmes. Continued surveillance of the impact of service disruption on cancer services allows policy makers and strategic leaders in cancer control programmes to respond rapidly to mitigate the impact on cancer outcome

Funding

Irish Cancer Society, grant reference number CMP21BEMU

Health Research Board

History

Data Availability Statement

The data underlying this article were provided by Healthlink by permission. For queries regarding this data, please contact the National Cancer Control Programme at info@cancercontrol.ie

Comments

The original article is available at https://academic.oup.com/

Published Citation

Bambury N. et al. Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on electronic referrals to rapid access clinics for suspected breast, lung and prostate cancers in Ireland. Eur J Public Health. 2024;34(5):908-913.

Publication Date

19 August 2024

PubMed ID

39160755

Department/Unit

  • Data Science Centre
  • General Practice
  • School of Population Health
  • Public Health and Epidemiology

Publisher

Oxford University Press

Version

  • Published Version (Version of Record)