Third of UK hospital Covid patients had ‘do not resuscitate’ order in first wave

Study found increase in people with DNACPR decisions compared with before pandemic

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Almost a third of patients admitted to hospital with suspected Covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic had a do not resuscitate" decision recorded before or on their day of admission, research suggests.

This is higher than the rates reported in previous studies of conditions similar to Covid-19 before the pandemic, according to a study from the University of Sheffield's School of Health and Related Research (ScHARR), one of the first to quantify the use of such orders in the pandemic.