Within the UK alone, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has left the masses in a state of disbelief. Control measures implemented to prevent its spread have changed the lives of many. Due to this, people’s job security, income and social contacts were all affected. All of these things are in fact essential for healthy lives.
The local government and the health sector were forced to restructure their entire working conditions to meet the demands caused by the outbreak. This was done to ensure that the most vulnerable members of society were protected at all costs. However, these measures were always against those that had been taken in previous years.
As a result, the NHS has now mobilised its forces to rapidly respond to those in need. In other words, they’ve dedicated their measures to those people that were infected by the virus while still delivering care to those who were not suffering from COVID-19. Due to increased demands over the years, the social care department faced a huge disadvantage as it continued to battle with the pandemic.
This left both staff and workers severely unprotected. In addition to this, they were made the most vulnerable members of society. However, this was poorly recorded and is only now being explored. In spite of this, most investigations are still focusing heavily on the rise in COVID-19 cases as well as the deaths and hospitalizations that follow.
With that said, each new week more and more national sources or data are being released to the public. However, the downside to that is that it is always one step behind the real events that are happening. These sources are not anywhere close to being perfect and should be considered as severe blind spots within the community service sector.
It should be noted that these statistics do indeed illuminate the outline of the infection. However, this mainly applies from March onwards. Within the upcoming weeks, the Health Foundation has indicated that it will begin publishing a number of commentaries and charts. These are geared at describing the real impacts of COVID-19.
The impacts will span from daily lives to the health care system and others. As such, they’ve made it clear that people should look out for the following four dimensions of the impact.
The Direct Impact of COVID-19
The first dimension of the impact is the direct impact that the virus has on society. This simply means that these impacts are focused on the seriousness of the illness and the deaths that follow. Very crucial evidence from China and Italy suggested that the virus was more likely to be detrimental to the elderly community in society.
However, they also needed to have a series of complications. If they suffered from ischaemic heart disease, diabetes, or even hypertension, they were said to be more at risk. The pattern continued to develop along these lines in Wales, England and Northern Ireland.
Impact on Acute Care
The second department for concern is that of the indirect impacts that COVID-19 has on the lives of everyone. In the month of March, the NHS had to continuously restructure its services to accommodate everyone within the sector. They even had to ensure that they had sufficient space to deal with the influx and treatments. Thus far, they’ve managed to publish up to 50 sets of hospital guidance for people to adhere to especially if they’re not suffering from COVID-19.
Impact on Non-Acute Care Including General Practice
Another serious issue for people in a critical condition is that many needed urgent care which was possibly interrupted. Managing patients in such a chaotic environment forced all general practices to change. According to scheduled guidance, people had to dial in or make appointments online before they had access to their GP.
In an effort to make more space, GPs had the option to refuse some of the regularly scheduled activities that they usually carried out. To keep in line with this, people over the age of 75 were declined regular medication review. Other suspended activities including the immunisation of children should have also been resumed. The general public was given instructions to contact NHS 111 if they thought that they were suffering from COVID-19.
The Lockdown and Social Distancing
The fourth revolved around the future impacts on health as a result of government intervention. Restrictions were put in place to ensure that regular movement was reduced to prevent the spread of the virus, reducing services such as physiotherapy in Hampshire. However, this resulted in many facing unemployment, bankruptcy, hardship, neglect and even domestic abuse.
