We are helping NHS staff at the frontline and assisting the national agenda to increase the capacity for diagnostic testing.

We are writing rapid reviews to help medical staff with their decision-making when treating patients for COVID-19. This work involves analysing the latest publications and reports along with translating and summarising national and global guidelines.

Dr. Ashley Price and Dr. Sara Graziadio, from the Newcastle MIC, are members of the Newcastle Hospitals Trials oversight group who are aiding the rapid establishment of Urgent Public Health badged studies.

Prof. John Simpson, Prof. Miles Witham and Dr. Joy Allen from the Newcastle MIC are members of the Urgent Public Health Group, set up by the Chief Medical Officer. They are providing expertise on diagnostics to support triaging of research studies of national importance.

We are part of a national partnership awarded £1.3M to form CONDOR (the COVID-19 National Diagnostic Research and Evaluation Platform) to robustly evaluate new COVID-19 tests in hospitals and the community.

Dr. Ashley Price and Dr. Clare Lendrem from the Newcastle MIC are part of a team, led by Dr. Chris Duncan (Newcastle University), who have examined data from COVID-19 screening of health-care workers.

Dr. Clare Lendrem (Newcastle MIC) and Trevor Little (Newcastle BRC) have created the COV-HI database for reporting the incidence of hyper-inflammation in patients with COVID-19 who are critically ill. They are also documenting the therapies that can potentially treat it. This UK wide project is led in Newcastle by Prof. Matthew Collin.

We are also working with Prof. Sue Mallett and Dr. Lavinia Ferrante di Ruffano (Birmingham Test Evaluation Group) and Prof. Chris Hyde (University of Exeter) to rigorously review the evidence regarding the clinical course of the disease so we can determine the optimal window for testing patients with new diagnostics.