File on 4 Investigates Folgen

In the headlines about NHS waiting lists, children don’t often get a mention. Yet hundreds of thousands are waiting to start hospital for treatment. Jane Deith investigates the reasons for the gap between adult and paediatric surgery. She hears from children whose conditions are deteriorating, some of whom could be left inoperable if they aren’t operated on soon. NHS leaders admit long waits can have life-long consequences for young people’s development and say hospitals are working hard to tackle the backlog. But surgeons and doctors warn that in the race to cut waiting lists, children risk being left behind.Reporter: Jane Deith Producer: Alys Harte Technical producer: Craig Boardman Production co-ordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston

The most senior family court judge in England has described the growing use of Deprivation of Liberty orders for vulnerable children as a 'crisis.' File on 4 hears from young people who were held under the order supposedly for their own safety. But they say they were under constant supervision, denied access to their phones and the internet and kept away from their families. Some say they were subjected to physical restraints and even supervised when they were having a shower. And one teenager who was on a Deprivation of Liberty order tells the programme he preferred being in prison.Reporter: Ashley John-Baptiste Producer: Phil Marzouk Technical Producer: Craig Boardman Production coordinator: Ellie Dover Editor: Carl Johnston

There are some two million people with long Covid in the UK - and most of them - around one and a half million - have symptoms that interfere with day to day activities. Fatigue, breathlessness, heart palpitations and severe dizziness are just some of the conditions people experience.Currently there’s no test for long covid and it could be years before we know for sure how best to treat the condition. This struggle to get help is leaving some very unwell people desperate - and willing to try anything to get better. There are treatments to wash your blood, high pressure oxygen chambers normally used by deep sea divers. A rainbow of supplements. All with varying degrees of evidence. And perhaps most strongly dividing opinion - programmes that claim to retrain long Covid patients' brains to stop their symptoms. They say they can help people recover from illness by rewiring the brain using techniques to influence physical changes in the body. Rachel Schraer - the BBC's health and disinformation correspondent - hears from people with long Covid who say the programmes didn't work and in some cases made them feel worse. Others say they fully recovered. Reporter: Rachel Schraer Producer: Paul Grant Technical producers: Cameron Ward and Nicky Edwards Production co-ordinator: Tim Fernley Editor: Carl Johnston