No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Working as a paediatrician over the last few months has been unlike any other time in my career. The restrictions and changes for children, young people and their families have been enormous. My colleagues and I have felt anxious about the risk to children and young people while schools are closed, services are reconfigured and families are 'locked down' at home. As a paediatrician with a special interest in safeguarding, this has posed a range of challenges and offered a few unexpected opportunities. Our task, as we begin to restore our services, is to build on the handful of positive outcomes that have arisen from this pandemic and work together to address the immense safeguarding challenges emerging over the coming months and years. This paper explores some of the clinical situations in which safeguarding challenges have presented themselves during the pandemic. It then explores some of the opportunities that the reconfiguration of services has presented for those working in child health. Emergency Department Attendances One of the biggest worries for those of us working in child health has been delayed presentations to health services. Parents and carers have felt understandably anxious, particularly about attending emergency departments, and have often waited until their child is very unwell before going to hospital. I have seen children presenting with injuries, sepsis or a deterioration in a long-term condition like diabetes who have been more unwell at presentation because of a delay in coming to hospital. It has been challenging to convey the seriousness of delaying while recognising that, in most cases, this was in response to public health messaging to stay away. Another noticeable change is an increase in infants presenting with feeding problems and crying. New mothers have not been allowed visitors in most maternity units and this, combined with worry about exposure to coronavirus in hospital, has meant people leaving with their newborns very quickly after birth. Most areas were not running face-to-face consultations with health visitors, and home visits from midwives in those early post-natal days have been limited. As a result, new parents have been left with a fraction of the