Pandemic sparks decline in children’s health, research finds

The latest QualityWatch report, compiled by The Health Foundation and the Nuffield Trust, shows the “extensive” effects of the pandemic on the overall health and care of children and young people.

It highlights an increase of up to 47 per cent in urgent referrals from GPs to hospital care for children and young people in December 2021.

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Since then, urgent referrals for this pathway have overtaken figures recorded from before the pandemic started, it explains.

The report outlines how there was an almost 80 per cent drop in urgent referrals in April 2020 due to the spread of Covid-19 cases.

This resulted in a 22 per cent increase in waiting list numbers for planned paediatric hospital care by the following year as the country emerged from national lockdowns, the report adds.

There were 245,654 children waiting for treatment in April 2021, a figure which had increased by nearly 55,000 in November 2021.

Children with suspected cancer are also having to wait longer to be seen by a consultant, with one in seven young people waiting more than the two-week target set by the NHS for patients to be seen after referral, according to the report.

Demand for mental health services has also soared during the course of the pandemic, with more than 330,000 referrals to children and young people’s mental health services made between April and September last year. 

This represents an 81 per cent increase during the same period in 2019 and is in comparison to an 11 per cent increase in referrals for adults, states the report.

In particular, the number of children suffering from eating disorders has increased dramatically with four times the number of young people waiting to start treatment.

The findings also reveal a rise in these young people attending A&E for help as a “last resort” but having to wait significantly longer in this type of setting.

The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH) said the findings highlighted with “cold clarity” the impact of the pandemic on children and young people.

Not only did young people face rapidly growing waiting times for health services but this was on top of the “disproportionate burden” on their mental health brought on by the pandemic, it said.

“These figures are stark and yet do not take into account the many other ‘hidden’ waiting lists of children waiting for community therapies and diagnostic assessments, especially for autism,” said Dr Camilla Kingdon, RCPCH president.

Kingdon said an urgent response was needed from the government with a fully costed workforce plan to ensure there were sufficient numbers of trained health professionals to support children and young people.

“In parallel, government strategies across the UK must urgently address mental health and wellbeing, tackle inequalities and poverty and truly ensure that following the pandemic no child is left behind,” she added.