Recorded infection control messages delay inter-professional communication but are not associated with COVID-19 prevalence or mortality: insights from a national switchboard analysis.

Maclean, Edd; Ghelani, Rahul; Adra, Myra; Arora, Anshu; Naran, Prasheena; Illing, Heather; Knight, Megan; Banerjee, Sophie; Myers, Sam; Brecher, Joanna; Anderson, Sarah; Aylward, Charlotte; Bindra, Harmit; Carter, Christine; Dib, Naim; Ganis, Laura; Saliu, David; Towler-Tinlin, Andrew; Kerwat, Doaa Rajab; Richards, Eleanor; Johnston, James Noble; Low, Barney

Appropriate dissemination of information to the general public is a key component of the pandemic response. In 2018, recorded infection control advice messages were affixed to 30% of England's automated hospital switchboards during the seasonal influenza and norovirus outbreaks. As the majority of messages were mandatory for all callers, healthcare professionals using the hospital switchboard - including during time-critical emergencies - had their enquiries significantly delayed by these measures. Importantly, published analyses did not demonstrate an association between these messages and patient outcomes. As of May 2020, 85% of NHS trusts made use of infection control messages; on average, these delayed healthcare professionals by 59.4 seconds per call, but had no clear association with patient outcomes from COVID-19. An ongoing national switchboard quality improvement project seeks to establish a gold standard whereby healthcare professionals with urgent enquiries can press 'X' to skip past infection control messages and have their calls triaged immediately.