IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wrk/warwec/1395.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Pandemic Pressures and Public Health Care : Evidence from England

Author

Listed:
  • Fetzer, Thiemo

    (University of Warwick, CAGE and CEPR.)

  • Rauh, Christopher

    (University of Cambridge, Trinity College Cambridge, CEPR)

Abstract

This paper documents that the COVID-19 pandemic induced pressures on the health care system have significant adverse knock-on effects on the accessibility and quality of non-COVID-19 care. We observe persistently worsened performance and longer waiting times in A&E; drastically limited access to specialist care; notably delayed or inaccessible diagnostic services; acutely undermined access to and quality of cancer care. We find that providers under COVID-19 pressures experience notably more excess deaths among non-COVID related hospital episodes such as, for example, for treatment of heart attacks. We estimate there to be at least one such non-COVID-19 related excess death among patients being admitted to hospital for non-COVID-19 reasons for every 30 COVID-19 deaths that is caused by the disruption to the quality of care due to COVID-19. In total, this amounts to 4,003 non COVID-19 excess deaths from March 2020 to February 2021. Further, there are at least 32,189 missing cancer patients that should counterfactually have started receiving treatment which suggests continued increased numbers of excess deaths in the future due to delayed access to care in the past.

Suggested Citation

  • Fetzer, Thiemo & Rauh, Christopher, 2022. "Pandemic Pressures and Public Health Care : Evidence from England," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1395, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1395
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/workingpapers/2022/twerp_1395_-_fetzer.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mitze, Timo & Kosfeld, Reinhold & Rode, Johannes & Wälde, Klaus, 2020. "Face masks considerably reduce COVID-19 cases in Germany," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 124130, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    2. Mitze, Timo & Kosfeld, Reinhold & Rode, Johannes & Wälde, Klaus, 2020. "Face masks considerably reduce COVID-19 cases in Germany," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 124587, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    3. Pablo D. Fajgelbaum & Amit Khandelwal & Wookun Kim & Cristiano Mantovani & Edouard Schaal, 2021. "Optimal Lockdown in a Commuting Network," American Economic Review: Insights, American Economic Association, vol. 3(4), pages 503-522, December.
    4. Etheridge, Ben & Spantig, Lisa, 2020. "The gender gap in mental well-being during the Covid-19 outbreak: evidence from the UK," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-08, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    5. Korinek, Anton & Bethune, Zachary, 2020. "COVID-19 Infection Externalities: Trading Off Lives vs. Livelihoods," CEPR Discussion Papers 14596, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Jason Abaluck & Laura H Kwong & Ashley Styczynski & Md. Ashraful Haque & Alamgir Kabir & Ellen Bates-Jeffries & Emily Crawford & Jade Benjamin-Chung & Salim Benhachmi & Shabib Raihan & Shadman Rahman , 2021. "Normalizing Community Mask-Wearing: A Cluster Randomized Trial in Bangladesh," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 2284, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    7. David Adam, 2022. "The pandemic’s true death toll: millions more than official counts," Nature, Nature, vol. 601(7893), pages 312-315, January.
    8. Eugenio Proto & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "COVID-19 and mental health deterioration by ethnicity and gender in the UK," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(1), pages 1-16, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Fetzer, T. & Rauh, C. & Schreiner, C., 2022. "The Hidden Toll of the Pandemic: Excess Mortality in non-COVID-19 Hospital Patients," Janeway Institute Working Papers 2224, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Lukas Freund & Hanbaek Lee & Pontus Rendahl, 2023. "The Risk-Premium Channel of Uncertainty: Implications for Unemployment and Inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 51, pages 117-137, December.
    3. Kai Fischer, 2023. "Skilled Labour Migration and Firm Performance: Evidence from English Hospitals and Brexit," CESifo Working Paper Series 10747, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna & Cerutti, Nicola & Friedrichsen, Jana & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face mask use and physical distancing before and after mandatory masking: No evidence on risk compensation in public waiting lines," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 192(C), pages 765-781.
    2. Fetzer, Thiemo, 2021. "Measuring the Epidemiological Impact of a False Negative : Evidence from a Natural Experiment," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1386, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    3. Hansen, Niels-Jakob H. & Mano, Rui C., 2023. "Mask mandates save lives," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    4. Sonia Oreffice & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "COVID-19 Information, Demand and Willingness to Pay for Protective Gear in the UK," Studies in Microeconomics, , vol. 9(2), pages 180-195, December.
    5. Xiao Chen & Hanwei Huang & Jiandong Ju & Ruoyan Sun & Jialiang Zhang, 2022. "Endogenous cross-region human mobility and pandemics," CEP Discussion Papers dp1860, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    6. Augusto Cerqua & Roberta Di Stefano, 2022. "When did coronavirus arrive in Europe?," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 31(1), pages 181-195, March.
    7. Sonia OREFICCE & Climent Quintana-Domeque, 2021. "Gender inequality in COVID-19 times: evidence from UK prolific participants," JODE - Journal of Demographic Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 87(2), pages 261-287, June.
    8. Demidova, Olga, 2021. "Methods of spatial econometrics and evaluation of government programs effectiveness," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 64, pages 107-134.
    9. Austin L. Wright & Geet Chawla & Luke Chen & Anthony Farmer, 2020. "Tracking Mask Mandates during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Working Papers 2020-104, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    10. Balázs Égert & Yvan Guillemette & Murtin Fabrice & David Turner, 2021. "Walking the Tightrope: Avoiding a Lockdown While Containing the Virus," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 22(03), pages 34-40, May.
    11. Seres, Gyula & Balleyer, Anna Helen & Cerutti, Nicola & Danilov, Anastasia & Friedrichsen, Jana & Liu, Yiming & Süer, Müge, 2021. "Face masks increase compliance with physical distancing recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 7(2), pages 139-158.
    12. Yating Chuang & John Chung-En Liu, 2020. "Who wears a mask? Gender differences in risk behaviors in the COVID-19 early days in Taiwan," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 40(4), pages 2619-2627.
    13. Zhen Zhu & Enzo Weber & Till Strohsal & Duaa Serhan, 2020. "Sustainable Border Control Policy in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Math Modeling Study," Papers 2008.13561, arXiv.org, revised Feb 2021.
    14. Bonander, Carl & Ekman, Mats & Jakobsson, Niklas, 2022. "Vaccination nudges: A study of pre-booked COVID-19 vaccinations in Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 309(C).
    15. Karaivanov, Alexander & Lu, Shih En & Shigeoka, Hitoshi & Chen, Cong & Pamplona, Stephanie, 2021. "Face masks, public policies and slowing the spread of COVID-19: Evidence from Canada," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    16. Roy Cerqueti & Raffaella Coppier & Alessandro Girardi & Marco Ventura, 2022. "The sooner the better: lives saved by the lockdown during the COVID-19 outbreak. The case of Italy [Using synthetic controls: Feasibility, data requirements, and methodological aspects]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(1), pages 46-70.
    17. Florian Dorn & Sahamoddin Khailaie & Marc Stoeckli & Sebastian C. Binder & Tanmay Mitra & Berit Lange & Stefan Lautenbacher & Andreas Peichl & Patrizio Vanella & Timo Wollmershäuser & Clemens Fuest & , 2023. "The common interests of health protection and the economy: evidence from scenario calculations of COVID-19 containment policies," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 24(1), pages 67-74, February.
    18. Zhang, Yue-Jun & Cheng, Hao-Sen, 2021. "The impact mechanism of the ETS on CO2 emissions from the service sector: Evidence from Beijing and Shanghai," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 173(C).
    19. David Turner & Balázs Égert & Yvan Guillemette & Jarmila Botev, 2021. "The tortoise and the hare: The race between vaccine rollout and new COVID variants," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1672, OECD Publishing.
    20. Isphording, Ingo E. & Pestel, Nico, 2021. "Pandemic meets pollution: Poor air quality increases deaths by COVID-19," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 108(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Health ; Externalities ; COVID-19 ; Coronavirus ; Excess deaths ; Cancer ; NHS ; Public health care JEL Classification: I18 ; I10 ; D62 ; H12 ; H55;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • D62 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Externalities
    • H12 - Public Economics - - Structure and Scope of Government - - - Crisis Management
    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wrk:warwec:1395. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Margaret Nash (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dewaruk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.