key: cord-0878042-plnxk67y
authors: Sharp, Elliott; Cole, Liam; Clementi, Rebecca; Curlewis, Keegan
title: Which medical specialties should be prioritised to fill staffing gaps caused by COVID‐19 in the United Kingdom? A network analysis
date: 2020-05-28
journal: Int J Health Plann Manage
DOI: 10.1002/hpm.2989
sha: a12496711fdb755f8489889ff4d1d2e0561c4c78
doc_id: 878042
cord_uid: plnxk67y

nan

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has created an unprecedent crisis in United Kingdom and worldwide healthcare. Over the coming months, it is possible that up to 20% of the UK workforce could be selfisolating at any one point in time. 1 Rates of self-isolation may be considerably higher in UK healthcare workers due to transmissions in the healthcare setting. Emerging evidence from countries hard-hit by the pandemic like China, Italy and Spain has shown that some specialties will have particularly high infection rates due to their proximity of care with COVID-19 positive patients.

The General Medical Council (GMC) and Chief Medical Officers of the four UK nations signed a joint statement saying that physicians may work across specialties so long as they are following GMC guidance on being a 'good doctor'. 2 Currently, there is no evidence of which medical specialties should be prioritised for working in specialties crucial for the care of COVID-19 patients. Therefore, the aim was to determine which doctors from 'filling specialties' could be prioritised to work in 'COVID-19 crucial specialties', such as intensive care medicine, acute internal medicine, infectious diseases, anaesthetics and emergency medicine. The top three specialties whose trainees made cross-applications to COVID-19 crucial specialties from 2015 to 2019 can be seen in Table 1 . Figure 1A ,B show all cross-applications across intensive care medicine, acute internal medicine, infectious diseases, anaesthetics and emergency medicine.

This study provides the first evidence for which specialties could be prioritised to fill staffing gaps in COVID-19 crucial specialties based on trainees' interest in related specialties. A limitation of this study is that cross-applications primarily indicate a trainee's interest of pursuing a career in another specialty. This does not directly suggest an applicant's competence in that speciality. However, it can be implied that if a trainee is prepared to pursue a career in a COVID-19 crucial speciality, that trainee would possess more knowledge in that speciality than someone not prepared to pursue a COVID-19 crucial speciality and could be more rapidly trained.

This analysis provides hopeful evidence towards which doctors may be best suited to fill staffing gaps in the COVID-19 pandemic and meet the incredible demands that healthcare systems will face.

ES made substantial contribution to the conception, design, acquisition of data, analysis of data, interpretation of data, drafting and revising the article and gave final approval of the version to be published. LC made substantial contribution to the design, analysis of data, interpretation of data, drafting and revising the article and gave final approval of the version to be published. RC made substantial contribution to the design, interpretation of data, drafting and revising the article and gave final approval of the version to be published. KC made substantial contribution to the design, interpretation of data, drafting and revising the article and gave final approval of the version to be published.

Coronavirus Action Plan: A Guide to What You Can Expect across the UK. London, UK: Department of Health and Social Care

Joint Statement: Supporting Doctors in the Event of a Covid-19 Epidemic in the UK. London, UK: General Medical Council

Gephi: an open source software for exploring and manipulating networks

The authors declare no potential conflict of interest.