Advice when patients present with COVID-19 symptoms

Many patients currently being assessed will be correctly eliciting the discriminator ‘Special risk of infection’ - ‘Known exposure to a dangerous pathogen, or travel to an area with an identified, current serious infectious risk’, which gives a FTF Now/Orange priority and a Presentation Priority Matrix disposition of ED.

Clinicians are asked to remember that, as with all MTS assessments, the MTS priority and the management of a patient are two different things. The MTS priority is fixed based upon the discriminator elicited from your assessment, however the management of the patient is based on a number of factors;

· your clinical judgement

· patient age, medical and social history

· availability of local services

· current clinical guidelines/management in place for a particular patient group or presentation.

With regards the current pandemic, there are clinical guidelines in place for the management of this patient group, and unless there are any other clinical risk factors which mean an immediate ED response is required, the clinical guidance should be followed, meaning that ED will more than likely not be appropriate for this group of patients.

The Presentation Priority Matrix (PPM) has always been ‘guidance’ for clinicians. Your clinical judgement in determining the most appropriate management remains the same for all patients and all MTS/PPM outcomes.

For more advice or support please contact your MTS instructor or email manchestertriage@alsg.org

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MTS and Covid-19