Senior physicians have confirmed to openDemocracy that the situation in other regions of the UK, where COVID-19 has hit hard, is likely to be similar.

In order to protect medical and patient confidentiality, openDemocracy has not named the network which logged these cases, nor offered more information from the COVID-19 incident log that could lead to patients or the hospitals being identified.

But these are real cases, not anecdotal evidence or details casually passed on. They are from an NHS paediatric service and show a worrying pattern that the parents of sick children are hesitating before bringing their kids to hospital.

The government’s stay-at-home message, designed to back-up social distancing and prevent the spread of the coronavirus, is appropriate for adults – but dangerous for children.

Paediatricians are calling for an urgent change in the government’s message and official advice for sick children. As one physician told openDemocracy: “Children can die of these diseases mentioned here.

That, sadly, will not change. But what is making the difference is that we are seeing these children later than usual, and it is this late presentation that needs to be addressed or things will only get worse.”

Last week openDemocracy revealed that the president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), Professor Russell Viner, privately contacted the Chief Medical Officer for England, Professor Chris Whitty, urging an immediate change in the government’s public information strategy.

Central to Viner’s concern was the very low number of children currently coming to hospitals and the hugely reduced numbers being referred by GPs.

Paediatricians from across the UK have also reported to the RCPCH that children are arriving at hospital with illnesses at a far more advanced stage than they would normally see.

Children as ‘collateral damage’ of coronavirus

Although NHS England and the Department of Health have recently said that people should always go to hospital if they need urgent care, there is still no specifically tailored message for parents of sick children.

For some frontline paediatricians, the child illness advice available on NHS 111 is not good enough. They have urged an immediate change in the messaging strategy to prevent children becoming, as one consultant put it, the “collateral damage of this pandemic”.

The BBC has reported that Dr Richard Brown, a consultant paediatrician at Addenbrooke’s Hospital in Cambridge, said there were “recurrent themes” – ruptured appendixes and severe sepsis – affecting young children who had not come to hospital as soon as they should.

The incident log seen by openDemocracy shows that this situation is an example of what is happening across England. We have not named the hospital from which the following details were provided: