Background When the UK went into national lockdown in March 2020, there were many questions about what that would mean for someone with a terminal illness. At a time when many face-to-face services had to stop, people had more questions than ever before. There was little government guidance for specific questions related to terminal illness and caring. Many carers, family members and people with an illness felt more isolated than ever before.

Aim We wanted to make a dedicated online information hub to provide a place where these questions could be answered, linking to our wider support offer.

Method We streamlined our usual content production process to get this information to our audience at the time they needed it. This allowed a small team to continually update our pages in plain English, providing guidance for all four nations of the UK as rules regularly changed. We maintained a high level of involvement from health and social care professionals, as well as policy stakeholders, ensuring the content was accurate, up-to-date, and relevant for our audience. The hub is available free on our website, and consists of 23 pages. The comprehensive resource answers questions related to coronavirus (and restrictions) for those at different stages of the caring journey - it is not just aimed at people who have (or had) COVID-19.

Results We monitored impact using Google Analytics and page surveys. Between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021, the hub had been accessed by 879,653 users. The page views for the hub were regularly between 25k-30k per week during this period. Three quarters of our users found the page they were reading useful, and said they felt better informed and reassured. The resource was shortlisted (final five from over 260 entries) for the BMA Patient Information award in 2021.