What are the health implications of reduced access to care during the COVID 19 pandemic?

Access to many forms of planned and unplanned healthcare reduced dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and associated lockdowns. The aims of this project are to investigate:

1. The effect on health outcomes of changes in healthcare utilisation during the COVID-19 pandemic
2. What actions are available to health systems to mitigate these effects

We will do this by:

• Exploring how the overall activity changed, by looking at the trends in activity levels for key services, for example, A&E visits, planned admissions, emergency admissions and primary care consultations
• In-depth analysis of unplanned emergency care to look for differences in current patterns of morbidity compared with pre-Covid
• A focused analysis of the impact of reduced access to care for diabetes patients
• Reviewing the implications for health care systems and identifying strategies and interventions to help health systems mitigate the negative effects

This report is now complete and is currently being shared with stakeholders across the Midlands region. It will be published openly in the coming weeks. For more details contact simonbourne@nhs.net