NIHR Global Health Research Unit on Global Surgery created CovidSurg, an international collaborating group of surgeons and anesthetists with representation from 20 different countries. This platform of studies aims to explore the impact of Covid-19 in surgical patients and services. Capturing the real-world data and sharing international experience will inform the management of this complex group of patients who have to undergo surgery throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, improving their clinical health. 

Together, they have already published a first Global guidance: the "Global guidance for surgical care during the Covid-19 pandemic". It was published on the British Journal of Surgery, where they explain how to mount an effective response to the Covid‐19 pandemic. Hospitals should prepare detailed context‐specific pandemic preparedness plans for surgical services, addressing to four key domains: provision of staff training (such as patient transfers, donning and doffing personal protection equipment, recognizing and managing COVID‐19 infection); support for the overall hospital response to COVID‐19 (reduction in non‐urgent activities such as clinics, endoscopy, non‐urgent elective surgery); establishment of a team‐based approach for running emergency services; and recognition and management of COVID‐19 infection in patients treated as an emergency and those who have had surgery.