Every Story Matters Healthcare – Easy Read


关于询价

英国 Covid-19 调查徽标

The UK Covid-19 Inquiry is

英国病毒
  • finding out what happened during the covid-19 pandemic in the UK
  • learning how to prepare for pandemics in the future
询问小组

The Inquiry is divided into modules.

Each module is about a different subject. Each module has:

报告
  • public hearings – events where people talk about their experiences
  • a report

每个故事都很重要

每个故事都很重要

每个故事都很重要 is how the Inquiry gathers people’s experiences of the pandemic.

People at an Every Story Matters event

Anyone in the UK can share their s with us. The stories are used in the Inquiry. We do not use people’s names.

Two people talking

Stories help us to learn about what happened, then decide how to do things differently in future.

Talking to healthcare staff

This page is about people’s experiences of healthcare during the pandemic.

Getting Healthcare

A hospital

People told us they

  • felt afraid to go to hospital and delayed getting treatment
A person with an ambulance
  • found it hard to speak to a GP
  • waited too long for ambulances
  • felt lonely and isolated
Person with a face mask

Face masks made it hard for d/Deaf people to understand what people were saying.

Good service from healthcare

Many people told us they got good care, from staff who were tired and working very hard.

医疗保健的变化

卧床病人

People told us

  • it was difficult to support family and friends at the end of their lives
  • not being allowed visitors in hospital made things extremely hard
Visiting a patient
  • not being able to visit also made it more difficult to cope with losing someone you love
Baby
  • new mothers in hospital also had no visitors. Many mums felt lonely and afraid.

长期新冠病毒

A person coughing

Long Covid happens when people do not recover from having covid. It can last for many months.

A person looking exasperated

People told us

  • long covid has a very big effect on their lives
  • they felt disappointed, angry and frustrated with the care they got
Healthcare staff
  • some people could not get any help with long covid, or found it difficult to get help

屏蔽

People shielding

屏蔽 means staying at home, or wearing a face mask if you are out.

Calendars

People told us

  • they had to shield for a long time, to prevent themselves getting ill
A person thinking
  • they didn’t know how long they would have to shield for
  • they could not do things they enjoy
A person alone in a room
  • they could not meet friends and family
  • people felt isolated, lonely and afraid

Working in healthcare

A healthcare worker

Healthcare staff told us

  • they had to do much more at work than before the pandemic
  • they had to work in different ways
Health trainers
  • they didn’t get the training they needed to do unfamiliar work
A healthcare worker
  • it was hard to find PPE that fitted properly.

PPE means Personal Protective Equipment, and includes face masks, aprons and gloves.

A person thinking
  • they felt exhausted. It affected their physical and mental health
  • routines changed a lot
A person looking sad
  • it was hard to see families not being able to be together, especially if their loved one was dying
愤怒的人们

Healthcare staff told us

  • staff caught covid and had to stay at home. This made it even harder for the staff who were still working.
A person using a computer
  • health services started to use more technology.

For example, video calls for GP appointments.

2024
  • They are still feeling the effects of the pandemic now.

Life has not gone back to how it was before.

Government guidance

英国议会

The government made lots of decisions during the pandemic.

询问小组

The Inquiry is finding out about these decisions.

Hospital

People told us

  • hospitals and other health services were not ready for a pandemic
抓头
  • it felt chaotic – everything was changing very fast, and people were not sure what was happening
Medical staff in an operating room

People told us

  • there was not enough PPE, and it did not fit properly. This made them feel unsafe.
A vaccine mobile app
  • at the start of the pandemic, there were no tests to find out if people had the virus
Rules
  • the rules about what people could and couldn’t do changed a lot.

They felt confused and unfairly treated

Tell your story

A numbered document

You can share your experiences in 3 ways:

People chatting

我们的网站

We run drop-in events in towns and cities across the UK.

Email

研究

We do research with selected groups of people.

谢谢

Thank you for reading this page.