625 Health Economics and Safety of Frontline Carers in the COVID-19 Era: Time to Abolish Routine Group and Save For Emergency Appendicectomies?

Baig, M; Sarma, D; Ng, V; Shortland, T; Sood, S

INTRODUCTION: Face of healthcare, patient safety and protection of healthcare providers has been completely transformed with global health pandemic. However, emergency surgical procedures must still be performed, with the commonest being appendicectomy. It is common practice across National Health Service trusts to collect a group and save (G&S) sample pre-operatively which increases healthcare staff exposure to the patient and increased use of personal protective equipment in this pandemic. METHOD: Prospective study of adult patients undergoing emergency appendicectomy since the transformation of emergency care with COVID-19 induced restrictions compared with patients undergoing the same operation before the pandemic. RESULTS: 179 adult patients underwent emergency appendicectomy over 6-months in 2019–2020, 60 patients in the 12 weeks period from the start of the transformed emergency services due to the pandemic. Pre-operative G&S samples were taken for 60(33.5%) patients in the pre COVID-19 period, whereas 7(11.6%) were taken for patients undergoing appendicectomy during the pandemic. None of the patients in either group had intra-operative blood loss of more than 500 millilitres and none of them required peri-operative blood transfusion CONCLUSIONS: Our study demonstrates that the routine pre-operative G&S can safely be abandoned as a routine practice for all patients undergoing emergency appendicectomy.