COVID-19 chart series The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has delivered a profound shock to the UK. We'll be exploring five dimensions of impact as they unfold – from the health and care system through to people’s daily lives

Even though the pandemic has many months to go, pressure is increasing to start planning for ‘after COVID’. The virus will have taken an uneven toll on an already unequal society. For services to meet people’s needs in the future, the stronger the evidence base, the better equipped they will be. The series of charts is intended to make a small contribution, and begin to make sense of the landscape left in COVID-19’s wake.
Blog
COVID-19: Five dimensions of impact
Over the next few weeks the Health Foundation will be publishing a series of charts, attempting to...
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COVID-19 policy tracker 2020
A timeline of the national policy and health system responses to COVID-19 in England in 2020.
Direct impact of COVID-19
The first dimension is the direct impact of the virus itself, in terms of death and serious illness, including inequalities in who is most affected.
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Understanding excess deaths: variation in the impact of COVID-19 between countries, regions and localities
This analysis compares the impact of COVID-19 in different countries, regions and localities through...
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Understanding excess mortality: comparing COVID-19’s impact in the UK to other European countries
As countries emerge from the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, meaningful comparisons have become...
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Do all care home residents face an equal risk of dying from COVID-19?
Care homes have been on the front line of the COVID-19 outbreak, but why have some areas of the...
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What has been the impact of COVID-19 on care homes and the social care workforce?
High death rates sustained during the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate the stark impact of the virus on...
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Understanding excess mortality: international comparisons
This chart compares changes in excess deaths as a proportion of usual deaths during the COVID-19...
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Care homes have seen the biggest increase in deaths since the start of the outbreak
Deaths in care homes from all causes are starting to stabilise but remain 159% higher than at the...
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Weekly registered deaths in 2020: tracker
Our weekly tracker showing the latest available data on mortality from all causes in 2020, as part...
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Black and minority ethnic workers make up a disproportionately large share of key worker sectors in London
This chart looks at the proportion of workers in each identifiable key sector, and non-key sectors...
Impact on acute care
The second dimension of concern is the indirect impact on people with acute conditions not related to COVID-19. We will be tracking some of the big shifts in care and their impact, including postponed treatments, redeployed staff and drops in A&E usage.
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Understanding the needs of those most clinically vulnerable to COVID-19
This analysis from the Networked Data Lab examines the evidence about those asked to shield during...
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Exploring the fall in A&E visits during the pandemic
COVID-19 has led to radical changes in the way that people are using NHS services, including...
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How has children and young people’s usage of A&E been impacted by lockdown and social distancing?
Social distancing has driven reduced demand for A&E services since March, particularly by children...
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Emergency care: what do the May data show?
In previous analyses we explored how COVID-19 is changing the use of emergency care on a national...
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Visits to A&E departments in England in April 2020 fell by 57% compared to last year
NHS England data show coronavirus has had a seismic impact on how people are using health services
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How is COVID-19 changing the use of emergency care?
Elaine Kelly and Zoe Firth look at how activity in the emergency care sector has changed since the...
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How is COVID-19 changing the use of emergency care by region?
Changes in the overall number of ambulance incidents have been small but there are large changes in...
Non-acute care including general practice
A third dimension of disruption will affect people with chronic conditions, or people needing less urgent care, which may have been interrupted. Understanding how this has affected access to general practice and other services will be critical.
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Use of primary care during the COVID-19 pandemic: May 2021 update
There have been dramatic shifts in primary care activities and outcomes in response to the COVID-19...
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Use of primary care during the COVID-19 pandemic
There have been dramatic shifts in primary care activities and outcomes in response to the COVID-19...
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How might COVID-19 have affected people’s ability to see their GP?
The data suggest that some face to face GP appointments may have been replaced by virtual...
The lockdown and social distancing
The fourth dimension will be the medium and long-term impact on health and health inequalities of the government interventions to restrict movement to curb the transmission of COVID-19.
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How are changes to employment and finances impacting mental health during lockdown?
We explore how changes in people’s employment and financial circumstances affected their mental...
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Emerging findings on the impact of COVID-19 on black and minority ethnic people
We explore why black and minority ethnic groups are being hit harder by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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Overcrowding is highest for those with low incomes
People in lower income households are more likely to be in overcrowded accommodation than those in...
Long read
Will COVID-19 be a watershed moment for health inequalities?
About 15 mins to read
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, and the wider governmental and societal response, have brought...
NHS and social care capacity and resilience
The fifth dimension is the longer term impact on service capacity and resilience, including the impact on the workforce.
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Going into COVID-19, the health and social care workforce faced concerning shortages
The NHS faces a workforce shortfall of over 115,000 full-time equivalent staff in England this year,...
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Even before COVID-19, high workforce turnover rates posed a major challenge for social care
Even before the pandemic, staffing was the biggest single challenge for the sector in England. High...
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Did hospital capacity affect mortality during the pandemic’s first wave?
Coming into the COVID-19 pandemic, the UK had high levels of bed occupancy in hospitals and very...
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