Thousands of parents in Kent are still waiting to register their newborn's birth following a major backlog caused by the coronavirus crisis.

The service run by Kent County Council (KCC) had been put on hold over the last three months with 3,500 registrations still outstanding.

County Hall's resources have been diverted to tackling the pandemic, including carrying out a growing number of death registrations.

KCC's head of registration, James Pearson, said the local authority plans to reduce a significant birth registration "backlog" within the next four to six weeks. Today, the authority confirmed face to face registrations will begin again on June 17. Parents can register between the hours of 10am and 4pm Monday to Saturday.

At a KCC meeting earlier this week, Mr Pearson told councillors: "We need to make sure we have all the necessary precautionary measures, such as screens in place, to allow those appointments to restart, which we are working on as we speak."

KCC's Labour group leader Dara Farrell told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "It's positive to hear the birth registration service is coming back as life has to go on beyond Covid."

The General Register Office has recently told KCC that the local health authority can resume its birth registration service, with KCC officials putting up screens at venues to ensure these are carried out safely for staff and families.

A large volume of Kent death registrations have been carried out over the phone during the pandemic, but birth registrations will likely have to be carried out in person unless government emergency legislation is changed.

These will be delivered from 10 locations across the county for births, which will be announced on Wednesday.

At a KCC communities virtual meeting on Monday, Mr Pearson said: "When the government passed it's emergency legislation it only related to death registrations and at that point we were clearly instructed to cease the delivery of birth appointments.

"By the nature of that it means we have built a backlog of over 3,500 births, which will now need to be cleared."

A Sevenoaks family has been waiting since March 14 for a birth registration of a baby boy to take him to meet his grandparents in Canada, according to the BBC.

"It's positive to hear the birth registration service is coming back as life has to go on beyond Covid."

Cllr Farrell added: "A three-month delay can have a knock on effect for families involved and this is something that the government needs to look at."

Parents will be contacted if their appointments were cancelled because of lockdown.

From tomorrow all the information on locations available will be here and you can book an appointment by calling 03000 415151 (Kent) 03000 415252 (Bexley).

For the latest coronavirus news and advice, click here.

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