What you told us about COVID-19 - Shielded people versus the general population

In June 2020, Healthwatch Sunderland gathered feedback from 714 respondents, gathering people’s general experiences of using health and social care services during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this report is to understand the experiences of 65 people who were shielding during March 2020 to June 2020.

The majority of shielding respondents found it easy to find, understand, act on and keep up to date with COVID-19 related information and advice, but there were areas where they found advice unclear and contradictory, including around shielding and travel. A larger proportion of shielding respondents who used healthcare services rated them as good or excellent - 92% compared tothe 49% of respondents who weren’t shielding. Shielding respondents reported a similar impact on their mental wellbeing to the respondents as a whole. Shielding people were less likely to keep up their exercise levels compared to the general population, but were more likely to have reported a weight loss.