LAUSR

County Durham and Darlington Foundation Trust (CDDFT) is a National Health Service (NHS) Trust and is one of the largest integrated care providers in England. It serves a population of around 650 000 people.1 The two major acute hospitals in this Trust are the University Hospital of North Durham (UHND) and Darlington Memorial Hospital (DMH). Both of those hospitals have type 1 Accident and Emergency (A&E) departments,2 3 which means that they are a consultant lead 24-hour service with full resuscitation facilities and designated accommodation for the reception of accident and emergency patients. During the COVID-19 pandemic, strategies were put in place to deal with spread of the virus. In the UK, there was an attempt to flatten the curve so that the NHS would be able to deal with sicker patients and provide all the support needed. To enable this, lockdown was introduced with social distancing, stay at home message and advice to wash hands regularly in order to break the cycle of spread of the virus. The NHS also restructured all the hospitals in order to prepare for the crisis. All the wards in UHND and DMH were sectioned into red and blue zones to aid with the patient flow. The AE red area was for patients with respiratory or COVID-19 symptoms, and blue area was for patients with non-respiratory symptoms. Doctors were redeployed from the community placements and other non-essential rotations to A&E and other essential wards. All the elective and non-emergency operations were halted during the lockdown. Outpatient departments were also closed …