COVID-19 in Women’s Health: Pre-operative gynaecological assessment and shared decision making

Ball, Elizabeth; Willmott, Fredric; Rivas, Carol; Talati, Chiraag

The National Health Service (NHS) response to the COVID-19 pandemic brought about rapid and innovative changes to surgical care in gynaecology, shared decision making around operative procedures and pre-operative gynaecological pathways. Short term changes are linked to the redeployment of resources away from elective gynaecology, longer term changes relate to accelerating the streamlining of treatments, telemedicine and education in patient self-management. The speed and recency of the response does not yet permit the creation of a large evidence base for effective and acceptable interventions, apart from anecdotal observations of ‘what works well,’ good practice and guidance from the Royal Colleges and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).