From Fax to Secure File Transfer Protocol: The 25-Year Evolution of Real-Time Syndromic Surveillance in England.

The purpose of syndromic surveillance is to provide early warning of public health incidents, real-time situational awareness during incidents and emergencies, and reassurance of the lack of impact on the population, particularly during mass gatherings. The United Kingdom Health Security Agency (UKHSA) currently coordinates a real-time syndromic surveillance service that encompasses 6 national syndromic surveillance systems reporting on daily health care usage across England. Each working day, UKHSA analyzes syndromic data from over 200,000 daily patient encounters with the National Health Service, monitoring over 140 unique syndromic indicators, risk assessing over 50 daily statistical exceedances, and taking and recommending public health action on these daily.

Taxation and Incentives in Private Health Services Delivery in Nigeria: Opinion of Private Health Practitioners.

Background: Tax relief and incentives are utilized to encourage the private health sector to provide services that are advantageous to community health. The aim of this study was to explore the issues related to taxes paid, incentives provided, returns on investment, satisfaction with practice, and plans of private health practitioners who were conference attendees in Port Harcourt in 2021.

Methodology: A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out at two national events in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria in October, and December 2021, among conference attendees using self-administered questionnaires.

Prevalence of Low Back Pain Among Specialist Medical Consultants at the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Background: Low back pain (LBP) is the 5th leading cause of physician consultation and is a significant cause of lost workforce hours with tremendous economic implications in every society. These findings suggest that medical practice in Nigeria is a potential risk factor for developing low back pain. Few studies have attempted to evaluate the medical specialties as risk factors for LBP.

Estimating the Impact of Air Pollution on Healthcare-Seeking Behaviour by Applying a Difference-in-Differences Method to Syndromic Surveillance Data.

Syndromic surveillance data were used to estimate the direct impact of air pollution on healthcare-seeking behaviour, between 1 April 2012 and 31 December 2017. A difference-in-differences approach was used to control for spatial and temporal variations that were not due to air pollution and a meta-analysis was conducted to combine estimates from different pollution periods. Significant increases were found in general practitioner (GP) out-of-hours consultations, including a 98% increase (2-386, 95% confidence interval) in acute bronchitis and a 16% (3-30) increase in National Health Service (NHS) 111 calls for eye problems.

Mental Health Presentations Across Health Care Settings During the First 9 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic in England: Retrospective Observational Study.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in an unprecedented impact on the day-to-day lives of people, with several features potentially adversely affecting mental health. There is growing evidence of the size of the impact of COVID-19 on mental health, but much of this is from ongoing population surveys using validated mental health scores.

Objective: This study investigated the impact of the pandemic and control measures on mental health conditions presenting to a spectrum of national health care services monitored using real-time syndromic surveillance in England.

Describing the indirect impact of COVID-19 on healthcare utilisation using syndromic surveillance systems.

Background: Since the end of January 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has been responsible for a global health crisis. In England a number of non-pharmaceutical interventions have been introduced throughout the pandemic, including guidelines on healthcare attendance (for example, promoting remote consultations), increased handwashing and social distancing. These interventions are likely to have impacted the incidence of non-COVID-19 conditions as well as healthcare seeking behaviour.

Study into COVID-19 Crisis Using Primary Care Mental Health Consultations and Prescriptions Data.

The effect of the 2020 pandemic, and of the national measures introduced to control it, is not yet fully understood. The aim of this study was to investigate how different types of primary care data can help quantify the effect of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis on mental health. A retrospective cohort study investigated changes in weekly counts of mental health consultations and prescriptions.

The COVID-19 pandemic: a new challenge for syndromic surveillance.

The COVID-19 pandemic is exerting major pressures on society, health and social care services and science. Understanding the progression and current impact of the pandemic is fundamental to planning, management and mitigation of future impact on the population. Surveillance is the core function of any public health system, and a multi-component surveillance system for COVID-19 is essential to understand the burden across the different strata of any health system and the population.

Laparoscopic retrieval of sharp foreign body: An innovative approach.

Background: Laparoscopy is a relatively new surgical approach in developing countries. Migrated foreign bodies into the body cavities could be very distressing to patients, relations and caregivers. There are paucity of migrated Steinmann pin and laparoscopic retrieval methods in literature.

Developing influenza and respiratory syncytial virus activity thresholds for syndromic surveillance in England.

Influenza and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are common causes of respiratory tract infections and place a burden on health services each winter. Systems to describe the timing and intensity of such activity will improve the public health response and deployment of interventions to these pressures. Here we develop early warning and activity intensity thresholds for monitoring influenza and RSV using two novel data sources: general practitioner out-of-hours consultations (GP OOH) and telehealth calls (NHS 111).

Estimating the burden on general practitioner services in England from increases in respiratory disease associated with seasonal respiratory pathogen activity.

Understanding the burden of respiratory pathogens on health care is key to improving public health emergency response and interventions. In temperate regions, there is a large seasonal rise in influenza and other respiratory pathogens. We have examined the associations between individual pathogens and reported respiratory tract infections to estimate attributable burden.

Estimating primary care attendance rates for fever in infants after meningococcal B vaccination in England using national syndromic surveillance data.

Background: In September 2015, the United Kingdom became the first country to introduce the multicomponent group B meningococcal vaccine (4CMenB) into a national infant immunisation programme. In early clinical trials 51-61% of infants developed a fever when 4CMenB was administered with other routine vaccines. Whilst administration of prophylactic paracetamol is advised, up to 3% of parents may seek medical advice for fever following vaccination.

Correcting for day of the week and public holiday effects: improving a national daily syndromic surveillance service for detecting public health threats.

Background: As service provision and patient behaviour varies by day, healthcare data used for public health surveillance can exhibit large day of the week effects. These regular effects are further complicated by the impact of public holidays. Real-time syndromic surveillance requires the daily analysis of a range of healthcare data sources, including family doctor consultations (called general practitioners, or GPs, in the UK).

The burden of seasonal respiratory infections on a national telehealth service in England.

Seasonal respiratory illnesses present a major burden on primary care services. We assessed the burden of respiratory illness on a national telehealth system in England and investigated the potential for providing early warning of respiratory infection. We compared weekly laboratory reports for respiratory pathogens with telehealth calls (NHS 111) between week 40 in 2013 and week 29 in 2015.

An Observational Study Using English Syndromic Surveillance Data Collected During the 2012 London Olympics - What did Syndromic Surveillance Show and What Can We Learn for Future Mass-gathering Events?

Unlabelled: Introduction In preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games, existing syndromic surveillance systems operating in England were expanded to include daily general practitioner (GP) out-of-hours (OOH) contacts and emergency department (ED) attendances at sentinel sites (the GP OOH and ED syndromic surveillance systems: GPOOHS and EDSSS). Hypothesis/Problem The further development of syndromic surveillance systems in time for the London 2012 Olympic Games provided a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of a large mass-gathering event on public health and health services as monitored in near real-time by syndromic surveillance of GP OOH contacts and ED attendances. This can, in turn, aid the planning of future events.

Developing and validating a new national remote health advice syndromic surveillance system in England.

Background: Public Health England (PHE) coordinates a suite of real-time national syndromic surveillance systems monitoring general practice, emergency department and remote health advice data. We describe the development and informal evaluation of a new syndromic surveillance system using NHS 111 remote health advice data.

Methods: NHS 111 syndromic indicators were monitored daily at national and local level.

Using real-time syndromic surveillance to assess the health impact of the 2013 heatwave in England.

Heatwaves are a seasonal threat to public health. During July 2013 England experienced a heatwave; we used a suite of syndromic surveillance systems to monitor the impact of the heatwave. Significant increases in heatstroke and sunstroke were observed during 7-10 July 2013.

Developing a new syndromic surveillance system for the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Syndromic surveillance is vital for monitoring public health during mass gatherings. The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games represents a major challenge to health protection services and community surveillance. In response to this challenge the Health Protection Agency has developed a new syndromic surveillance system that monitors daily general practitioner out-of-hours and unscheduled care attendances.

Use of a large general practice syndromic surveillance system to monitor the progress of the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic 2009 in the UK.

The Health Protection Agency/QSurveillance national surveillance system utilizes QSurveillance®, a recently developed general practitioner database covering over 23 million people in the UK. We describe the spread of the first wave of the influenza A(H1N1) pandemic 2009 using data on consultations for influenza-like illness (ILI), respiratory illness and prescribing for influenza from 3400 contributing general practices. Daily data, provided from 27 April 2009 to 28 January 2010, were used to give a timely overview for those managing the pandemic nationally and locally.

Syndromic surveillance to assess the potential public health impact of the Icelandic volcanic ash plume across the United Kingdom, April 2010.

The Health Protection Agency and Health Protection Scotland used existing syndromic surveillance systems to monitor community health in the UK following the volcanic eruption in Iceland in April 2010.

Inequalities in uptake of influenza vaccine by deprivation and risk group: time trends analysis.

The aim of this study was to investigate influenza immunisation rates in the United Kingdom over a 6-year period and examine trends in uptake by deprivation, ethnicity, rurality and risk group. Influenza immunisation rates were determined from 1999/2000 to 2004/2005 using a large general practice database (QRESEARCH). There was a relative increase of 59.

Uptake of pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine in at-risk populations in England and Wales 1999-2005.

The UK has had a pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccination (PPV) programme for groups at higher risk of invasive disease since 1992. This paper presents data from a sample of primary-care practices (Q-RESEARCH) of PPV uptake in patients according to their risk status. Of 2.