COVID-19 Inquiry (UK) and RCPCH involvement

What is RCPCH doing?  

RCPCH has actively engaged with the COVID-19 Inquiry since it was announced. This has been informed by evidence we collected during the pandemic including on the impact of paediatric services, paediatricians and children and young people.  

All the information we have shared with the Inquiry is also captured in evidence submissions we have made to parliamentary committees, government departments and the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisations and in public statements available on our website. Much of this has been informed by research collected by RCPCH during the pandemic, including surveys of members and children and young people.  

The College is also working through the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, which is a core participant for Module 3 (impact of Covid-19 pandemic on healthcare systems in the 4 nations of the UK).   

Terms of Reference

RCPCH welcomes the Inquiry. But we noted our disappointment and concern about the lack of specific focus on children and young people when the draft Terms of Reference were published. We responded to the draft Terms of Reference consultation in April 2022 to formally acknowledge this and called on the Inquiry to expand the Terms of Reference to include a greater focus on children and young people and to acknowledge the specific impact on the child health workforce.

Following this, we were pleased that Baroness Hallett, chair of the COVID-19 Inquiry, wrote to then Prime Minister to request the Terms of Reference be expanded to include a focus on children. 

Supporting with evidence

The Inquiry has reached out to the College for evidence in relation to both Module 2 (Core UK decision-making and political governance) and Module 3 (impact of COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare systems in the 4 nations of the UK). We have been required to provide formal evidence to the Inquiry.

Themes our evidence has touched upon include:

• Children and young people’s mental health
• Safeguarding and child protection, especially of vulnerable children (including reflections on the impact of school closures)
• Widening of child health inequalities and the need to address structural inequalities that impact our members
• Redeployment of the child health workforce and facilities to adult services
• Specific impacts on paediatricians, including with regards to shielding, vaccination, mental health and wellbeing
• Interruption of routine child health appointments, including in the community, and the disruption of wider childhood vaccination programmes
• Ongoing impact the pandemic has had on children’s health outcomes
• The process that national guidance on COVID-19 was developed and how RCPCH influenced this to ensure children and young people were appropriately considered.

In relation to Module 3, we have been asked about lessons learned from the pandemic. We reflected: 

• Children and young people need to be at the centre of policy making for future pandemics
• The NHS in each country of the UK must be underpinned by an evidence based and fully funded plan for the workforce (required pre-pandemic but heightened by occurrence) 
• On the need for any pandemic-related policies to be informed by an inequalities impact assessment (required pre-pandemic but heightened by the pandemic).
• There needs to be data sharing across agencies to improve population health needs and appropriate service planning and policy development (required pre-pandemic but heightened by the pandemic).
• That clearer communications planning with the public, including tailored information to children and young people, at a much earlier stage is required and that Colleges and others ought to be fully brought into those discussions to avoid ambiguity
• On the need to recognise the positive impact that greater and differing use of technology can have on delivery of services
• On the importance of working cross-organisations with expert clinical input (e.g paediatric input into NHS 111)
• There needs to be a greater understanding of the specific impacts on the NHS and social care workforce and trainees across the four nations 
• There needs to be a more rapid consideration of the wider impact of such pandemics on community services that support children and young people and their families

Module 8 (Children and Young People)

The College was granted core participant status for Module 8 of the Inquiry which is focused on children and young people. As a core participant, the College is able to play a more active role in advocating for children and young people and the workforce that supports them. For example, it gives the College the ability to make opening and closing statements during Inquiry hearings, the ability to ask questions of witnesses during hearings, and gain advance access to Inquiry reports. 

Next steps

The College will continue to engage with the Inquiry at its request. We note that oral evidence hearings for Module 8 of the Inquiry commence on the 29 September. The College has been using its status as a core participant to advocate for children and young people and our members in line with the themes and reflections set out above. Where there are opportunities to do so, we will continue to do this throughout the Inquiry hearings and will share further updates when we can on this webpage.