Monthly English A&E statistics for March 2020 published today: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/ae-waiting-times-and-activity/ae-attendances-and-emergency-admissions-2019-20/

I’d normally post an updated chart, but there’s A LOT of important context behind these numbers, so instead, a thread /1
First off, huge fall in people attending A&E (as @phe_uk weekly updates have also shown: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-department-weekly-bulletins-for-2020)

Almost 30% fewer attendances in March 2020 than in March 2019 /2
This is NOT just a fall in ‘avoidable’ attendances /3
There’s been a big 📉in A&E attendances from patients with cardiac problems at same time as 📈in calls to ambulance service for chest pain – suggests some people are holding back on going who should: https://twitter.com/nedwards_1/status/1246000810800173056 /4
Perhaps surprisingly, ‘performance’ – the proportion of patients admitted, discharged or transferred within four hours – increased slightly, for third month a row /6
That could be because fewer people are turning up, but little evidence that A&E performance is correlated with volume of attendance... /7
Slightly more A&E attendees were admitted to hospital this month (31.5%) compared to March last year (29.8%), which might suggest that people now turning up more likely to need intensive care /9 ( https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/04/Statistical-commentary-March-2020-jf8hj.pdf)
So why could performance have improved?

Still unclear – though as @sib313 says, it might be because hospitals had a few more spare beds in their efforts to free up space for Covid 19 patients who hadn’t yet filled them: https://twitter.com/sib313/status/1247169058430021635 /10
TL;DR – please DON’T CONCLUDE that more people being seen within 4 hours means we should celebrate falling A&E attendances.

Better performance more likely to do with bed numbers; and fall in attendances could be storing up problems! 12/12
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