7th July 2025

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Access to Healthcare Across Wales

It is widely known that the COVID-19 pandemic significantly disrupted healthcare across the globe. Now, researchers from Swansea University have used linked electronic health records to reveal how the pandemic affected healthcare use differently for people living with long-term health conditions across different parts of Wales.

This latest study, published in the International Journal of Population Data Science (IJPDS), found that during the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a sharp drop in people with long term conditions using primary healthcare facilities in Wales. This was particularly noticeable in the most deprived areas of Wales, and within areas classified as urban city and town in a sparse setting (an urban area situated within a wider area that is not densely populated) experiencing the largest declines of almost 30% below pre-pandemic levels. However, these areas also experienced the smallest decline in secondary care interactions (e.g. hospital admissions) which may suggest a possible shift from using primary to secondary healthcare services. Interestingly, it was rural towns and fringes in sparse settings that experienced the largest reduction in accessing secondary healthcare services.

The researchers created the SAIL long-term conditions e-cohort using anonymised healthcare records from over 1.2 million Welsh residents with long-term conditions like asthma, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, to track how healthcare interactions changed before (2017-2019) and during (2020-2022) the pandemic.

The newly created dataset has not only provided crucial insights into which communities were most affected by pandemic-related healthcare disruptions, but will continue to be used to further investigate the reasons for the variation in changes in healthcare service use across Wales, potentially informing more targeted interventions to ensure fairer healthcare.

Lead author Timothy Osborne, Research Officer and Data Scientist at Population Data Science, Swansea University, said:

“Understanding where healthcare was disrupted most during the pandemic helps policymakers target resources more effectively to communities with the greatest need, and better prepare for future health crises. The findings of this study suggest that ensuring equitable access to primary care services during disruptions should be a priority, particularly for deprived communities where the impact appears to have been greatest.”