Clinical academic leadership in COVID-19: a rapid response to sharing emerging insights in intensive care

Rehill, Nirandeep Begley Amanda Mantell Katie Roberts C. Michael

Background The COVID-19 pandemic has raised a wide range of challenges for health systems around the world and the National Health Service in England has been no exception. A significant proportion of infected cases require intensive care unit support and have a high mortality rate. In the early stages of the pandemic, there was neither an evidence base nor a clinical consensus on the optimal management of patients in this setting.Interventions Responding to requests for assistance to address this evidence gap, UCLPartners, an Academic Health Science Partnership, working in collaboration with other organisations including National Institute of Health Research Applied Research Collaboration North Thames, developed a clinical academic team to synthesise clinical learning in real time. This was then disseminated using existing networks and social media to local, regional, national and international clinical teams.Conclusion An Academic Health Science Partnership was able to respond quickly through adapting and expediting traditional methods of evidence gathering, supporting organisations to work collaboratively across their networks and so meet an urgent clinical need to the benefit of clinicians and patients.