The coronavirus pandemic will have huge impacts on the National Health Service (NHS). Patients suffering from the illness are placing unprecedented demands on acute care, particularly on intensive care units (ICUs). This has led to an effort to dramatically increase the resources available to NHS hospitals in treating these patients, involving reorganisation of hospital facilities, redeployment of existing staff and a drive to bring in recently retired and newly graduated staff to fight the pandemic.

Increases in demand and changes to supply related to the Covid-19 pandemic will not only affect patients with the coronavirus, but will have large knock-on effects on the care provided to the wider population. In this briefing note researchers from IFS and Imperial College discuss likely implications for healthcare delivery in the short and medium term of the responses to the coronavirus pandemic, focusing primarily on the implications for non-coronavirus patients.

The lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic has effectively shut down a number of sectors. We find that young people, women and low-earners are the most affected.

The Chancellor has introduced workable and generous income protection schemes for most employees and self-employed people that lose work as a result of coronavirus. But there are some groups who have seen no increase in protection.

The Debt Management Office announced yesterday that in order to finance the Government’s response to the Covid-19 outbreak it intends to auction £45 billion of gilts this month. This would be a record. It is highly likely that the amount that needs to be raised over the new financial year will be the highest, as a share of national income, since 2009–10 and it could even exceed that peak. With an increasing amount of gilts set to be bought by the Bank of England the public finances will in future be even more exposed to changes in short-term interest rates.