P021  Rheumatology shielded patients, hospitalised COVID-19 and outcomes in Essex: an audit across Mid and South Essex and Barking, Havering and Redbridge Hospitals NHS Trusts

Conclusion This audit supports the idea that shielding is an effective tool in protecting these vulnerable patients. Most of our patients admitted were elderly, had multiple co-morbidities and generally conformed with the known risk factors for severe COVID-19 illness. This supports Government guidelines an d BSR risk scoring and is particularly important as it is becoming increasingly apparent that COVID-19 will be prevalent for a long time to come. In line with the recent EULAR COVID-19 registry report, only one of the hospitalised patients from these Trusts was on anti-TNF therapy, suggesting that t hese therapies were in fact protective. It raises the open question: whether immunosuppression may have a protective effect in some Rheumatology patients.Disclosure C. Ranasinghe: None.A. Nandagudi: None.E. Balogh: None.E. Sekaran: None.T. Doherty: None.A. Ali: None.G. Koduri: None.B. Dasgupta: None.
Source: Rheumatology - Category: Rheumatology Source Type: research