Lord Bethell, the Department of Health and Social Care, has provided the following answer to your written parliamentary question (HL9501):
Question by Lord Alton of Liverpool:
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether hospitals in England used the triage tool to assess whether to admit elderly patients to intensive care between March and August; if so, whether age was the only criteria used to make such assessments; what assessment they have made of the impact of that system on the provision of care to all those that needed it; and who (1) devised, and (2) authorised, that tool. (HL9501)
Tabled on: 26 October 2020
Answer:
Lord Bethell:
Claims that frail and elderly patients were denied care in wave one of the coronavirus pandemic, in part because of a triage tool which was developed for use if the National Health Service was overwhelmed, are categorically untrue. Guidance to help clinicians make rational, evidence-based decisions in the event of intensive care units being overwhelmed was commissioned by the NHS England National Medical Director and the four United Kingdom Chief Medical Officers but work was halted when it became clear the NHS would not be overwhelmed.
