PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Roz Tucker AU - Sverrir Kristinsson AU - Divya Benny AU - Zainab Khan AU - Tofunmi Oni AU - Andrew Smith TI - How we adapted the T&O inpatient service during the COVID-19 pandemic with physician associates to support the orthopaedic team AID - 10.7861/fhj.2020-0206 DP - 2021 Jul 01 TA - Future Healthcare Journal PG - e288--e292 VI - 8 IP - 2 4099 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/8/2/e288.short 4100 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/8/2/e288.full SO - Future Healthc J2021 Jul 01; 8 AB - Introduction In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there were increasing demands on medical and intensive care departments in the UK. Medical staff from surgical departments were redeployed. The aim of this study was to determine whether the department was able to maintain standards with the use of the physician associate / medical doctor (PA/MD) model of care.Methods A mix of questionnaires and audit data was collected prospectively and compared with pre-COVID and the general surgical team which did not have PAs.Results Sixty-five per cent of responses indicated an improvement compared with pre-COVID conditions and 35% indicated care was the same. The electronic discharge notification audit showed an 89% completion rate for orthopaedics compared with 73% for general surgery. Venous thromboembolism assessment compliance was better compared with general surgery.Conclusion Overall, the study supports the hypothesis that a PA/MD model of care is non-inferior to a MD-only model of care and was effective.