What isn’t clear is what comes next for that group. The ONS data 1 suggest around 400,000 patients are still suffering symptoms from that first wave. It’s thought that around 65%-75% of those who have symptoms at four weeks will have recovered in a year.
Professor Majeed says patients can often be very disappointed to discover the limited options available to them, after waiting a long time to be seen in a specialist clinic and undergoing a large number of assessments and investigations. Dr Strain says there is a significant subgroup of long Covid patients who are experiencing respiratory and cardiac symptoms. Some of the first long Covid services were organised by respiratory clinicians who expected to see lots of breathlessness. They can be physiotherapy based, or centred around psychological services. ‘But 3% of a large number is still a large number and in the next wave, I’m not worried about hospitals being overrun, I’m worried about the impact on referrals for long Covid services.’Īlongside the issues with referrals, the expertise available at long Covid clinics can vary widely as they have all been set up in different ways.
Studies suggest 2 that vaccination programmes have helped to reduce the burden of long Covid.ĭr David Strain, senior clinical lecturer at the University of Exeter Medical School, says initially one in 10 patients reported ongoing symptoms at 12 weeks but that figure is now around 3%. The NHS also needs to be able to deal with a much larger number of patients than it currently does without the long delays and frequent rejection of GP referrals.’ Professor Azeem Majeed, a GP and professor of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, says: ‘The current process is very time consuming and bureaucratic for patients and professionals. Yet more than one referral in 10 is rejected for being clinically inappropriate and in July 2022, around a third of those referred were waiting 15 weeks or more to be seen. Scotland and Wales have set up their own services across health boards, although figures are not available. Around 75,000 patients have now been referred to around 90 long Covid clinics across England, averaging around 5,000 patients a month. The sheer numbers of people developing long Covid in a relatively short period has prompted research that is starting to unpick the underlying pathology of symptoms like fatigue and brain fog and may open the door to potential treatments.Ĭurrently, long Covid is placing huge pressure on general practice and the NHS. However, there may be light at the end of the tunnel. Patients end up returning to the GP having had many investigations, and frustrated at the limited treatment options.Įven before long Covid, medically unexplained symptoms made up a significant proportion of GPs’ workloads and the struggle to find any treatments that work causes great frustration to patients and GPs alike.
And even when referral is possible, those clinics are faced with a lack of evidence on what management will be most effective. As with many secondary care services, referral to long Covid clinics brings its own problems. Yet often there is little GPs can offer these patients. I have patients who have lost their jobs and had to move back in with their families – and these are people who are young and were healthy and well before.’
Hertfordshire GP Dr Neena Jha says: ‘What we see in general practice is how people have had to change their lives. Such symptoms may have previously been labelled fibromyalgia, or chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS/ME). The majority of cases involve ambiguous symptoms that GPs have struggled to deal with in other scenarios – fatigue, shortness of breath, muscle ache and brain fog. 1 Around one patient in five has had symptoms for at least two years and 19% say their ability to carry out day-to-day activities has ‘been limited a lot’. More than two years on, the Office for National Statistics has put a figure of 2 million people in the UK – or 3.1% of the population – as experiencing self-reported long Covid symptoms.
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