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We worked with four areas across England to find out how health, social care and education provision changed during the coronavirus pandemic and what impacts the changes have had on children's health and wellbeing.

We talked with children, young people and parent-carers about changes in services they received. We talked about what worked well and didn’t. We talked about how the changes affected children and their families.

We talked to professionals about their experiences of commissioning and delivering services during the pandemic.

What families told us

Young people and parent carers told us about the negative impacts of service change had on their physical, mental and behavioural health.  

The said that they found it difficult to keep in touch with services during the pandemic and access to services varied.

They felt that services from doctors were least disrupted. Appointments often took place by telephone and video calls, and this was a good way to review treatments such as medicines.

Therapy services and education were severely disrupted. Doing lessons at home was often difficult. Families felt they often had to push for information on how to help their child’s learning at home. Therapy was often difficult to do because equipment wasn’t available. Also, therapists could not see children clearly enough on video calls to advise parents on how to help their child learn new skills.

The continued disruption, which was longer than imagined at the start of the pandemic, had a detrimental impact on families coping with high levels of medical care and physical and behavioural support.

A report on families' experiences was published in BMJ Open: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-085144

What professionals told us

Professionals told us about the ways they tried to keep in contact with families during the pandemic. They set up new was to keep in touch, such as phone calls and apps, but this did not always work. They worried about how often they were able to see children and about how families were coping when they were caring for their child very limited support.

Health professionals agreed with families that medical appointments were easiest to do by phone or video consultation. Therapists often work directly with children to feel, see and hear what they are doing in order to work out what might help best. Doing this with parent carers via video link was often very difficult.

Health professionals told us that they tried to keep some settings open so that they could see children for urgent and important issues. This worked well when everyone understood when children should come in and for what.

Professionals thought schools should be kept open whenever possible and that all professionals should be able to see children in school. This would help children with their learning, maintaining relationships and keeping healthy.

A report on our interviews with professionals was published in BMJ Open: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-085143