Treating those requiring anticoagulation during the COVID-19 pandemic

As the country – and, at varying paces, the world – went into lockdown in March 2020 as a result of concerns surrounding COVID-19, no individual's life was left unaffected. Those testing positive, especially those who became severely ill or even lost their lives, are the obvious victims of the pandemic. Following them, most impacted were their loved ones and those providing care to them, particularly on the frontlines.

However, whatabout other people requiring treatment during the pandemic for non-COVID-related conditions? With severe limitations on healthcare resources and efforts to keep people safe at home, most elective procedures and any appointments deemed non-urgent were cancelled and many were not seeking help for non-COVID symptoms, partially out of fear of being exposed to COVID-19 in hospital and partially out of concern about placing additional burden on already severely strained services (British Heart Foundation, 2020).

However, keeping hospital visits to a minimum has required other changes too. In March 2020, NHS England (2020) quickly devised a plan to switch patients who have previously had a blood clot and were on warfarin therapy to a direct oral anticoagulant (DOAC) in an effort to reduce face-to-face consultations with patients.