News and views

High rates of AKI in COVID-19 patients in ICU Recent reports have highlighted high rates of renal complications in patients with COVID-19 infection, notably acute kidney injury (AKI). Up to 30% of patients with the infection in the intensive care unit (ICU) may suffer from AKI, with resulting death rates as high as 50%....

Diabetes UK position statement Diabetes UK has published a position statement1 from the UK National Diabetes Inpatient COVID Response Group, which was formed at the end of March 2020. It outlines the need to maintain key elements of specialist diabetes services with a focus on delivering safe inpatient diabetes care....

Several useful resources are now available to support mental health among doctors and other health care professionals. With the significant impact of COVID-19 increasing pressure and stress on the way we work and live, it is important to prioritise mental health and wellbeing....

The British Heart Valve Society (BHVS) has produced a statement on COVID-19 and heart valve disease to help answer patient queries. This is available at: https://www.bhvs.org.uk/covid-19-coronavirus-illness-and-heart-valve-disease/...

The COVID-19 crisis has brought with it a continual stream of information both in the lay press and also in that specifically aimed at healthcare professionals (HCPs). The purpose of our series of Bulletins is to filter this information and to present aspects important for your practice. We have joined with the Cardiorenal Forum, the British Society for Heart Failure, the British Geriatrics Society Cardiovascular Section and other medical and nursing groups to achieve this. The Bulletin will feature news, commentaries and tips from frontline healthcare professionals treating COVID-19 patients daily. We hope you find this useful and we welcome your feedback....

Difficult conversations with the seriously ill “We will have to talk about dying during COVID-19 but the challenge for us is how to do this with confidence and empathy and have these conversations with openness, compassion and dignity.”...

What we know so far Diabetes (together with hypertension and ischaemic heart disease) is one of the conditions that is notably associated with poorer outcomes in individuals with COVID-19. This was initially highlighted in research from China and corroborated with further data from Italy. ...

Retention of essential heart failure services Heart failure teams are in demand due to their transferable skills, but there are significant risks with the redeployment of staff and reduction of services designed to monitor and maintain patients with life threatening conditions. Such patients cannot be left without vital support....

Managing COVID-19 in General Practice A free on-line course from St George’s University of London, designed for front-line clinicians, healthcare workers and professionals who are dealing with the large volume of patients in the current COVID-19 pandemic within primary care, is available....

New American Thoracic Society Guidance An American Thoracic Society-led international task force has released a guidance document to help clinicians manage COVID-19 patients in the face of a worldwide pandemic and “minimal empirical evidence to guide treatment”. The new guidance ‘COVID-19 interim guidance on management pending empirical evidence is published as an open access document on the Society’s website: thoracic.org....