To help you find the blog(s) you are looking for more easily, I have added a list of blog categories below. Simply select the relevant category below and the relevant blogs will appear.
You can also access the blog categories via the main menu from any page on the website by clicking on the blog about all things Long Covid.
Alternatively you can scroll through the blog excerpts below.
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Long Covid as a multi-system disease: What the research tells us
This week’s blog is written by Dr Elisa Perego MA PhD (@elisaperego78), a patient and a researcher, who is affiliated as an Honorary Research Fellow to University College London and a Long Covid Kids champion.
Long Covid is a multi-system, heterogeneous disease. As a disease entity, Long Covid can basically affect all systems and organs in the body. This does not mean everyone with Long Covid will have proven pathology in every organ – but that damage, across different patient groups, can appear, basically, everywhere in the body. Some people will have physical damage documented only in one organ. Others will have physical impairment and biological abnormalities documented in many organs and body systems. Persistence of SARS-CoV-2 – or parts of it – in various body tissues is increasingly documented in the scientific literature.
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Supporting Healthcare Heroes UK: A charity in development
Today is International Long Covid Awareness Day. Given this it seemed appropriate to write a blog outlining the work done so far to set up a charity for healthcare workers with Long Covid as well as let you know how you can help us take this work forward.
Who are we?
The work to set up the charity is currently being led by three founding trustees all whom have Long Covid:
- Dr Alison Twycross (@alitwy)
- Dr Shaun Peter Qureshi (@shaun_qureshi)
- Adrian Powell (@chantillyexpat)
We are also grateful to the support we are getting from a couple of amazing volunteers to get the charity up and running.
Why are we setting up the charity?
Supporting Healthcare Heroes UK (@UKHealthca85341) has been set up:
To prevent and alleviate poverty and financial hardship for healthcare workers who developed post-acute covid-19 complications (Long Covid) following Covid-19 which was acquired because of carrying out their duties during the pandemic, whether or not they are still employed, by providing financial grants to individuals and/or other organisations and charities with similar aims.
The Government has continually stuck to its erroneous belief that Covid is over despite clear evidence that a significant proportion of the population have been affected by this mass disabling event.
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The 4th Mode of Nosocomial Transmission – Airborne Dissemination
This week’s blog is 6th in a series by Dr Evonne T Curran (@EvonneTCurran).
The pre-pandemic Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) model for respiratory transmission (droplets or aerosols) with droplets being the dominant mode is un-evidenced. Although this has yet to be admitted by some guidance writers – the evidence for airborne infection is overwhelming. Much of what I have been trying to do is persuade people that most respiratory infections including SARS-CoV-2 are airborne. I naively thought that if the new paradigm was accepted (everything ≤100μ being inhalable), this would naturally lead to the correction of control measures and the introduction of indoor air quality and respirators. This is yet to happen.
However, the further I investigated the existing 3 Modes of Nosocomial Transmission (MoNT), and the 3 corresponding precautions (airborne, droplet, contact), the more I realised that these modes of transmission omit another MoNT altogether – Airborne Dissemination. Having been ignored when demonstrating that the droplet or airborne paradigm needs amending, perhaps this argument – you have omitted a 4th MoNT altogether – might yield better results.
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How the RCN Foundation can support staff with Long Covid
This week’s blog is written by Deepa Korea (@deepa_korea), RCN Foundation (@RCNFoundation) Director
About the RCN Foundation
The RCN Foundation is an independent charity and grant-maker. We were set up in 2010 when the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) separated its charitable activities from its trade union and other activities. Our purpose is to support and strengthen nursing and midwifery, to improve the health and wellbeing of the public.
The Foundation supports nurses, midwives, nursing associates, healthcare support workers, student nurses and midwives, and retired nurses, midwives and healthcare support workers in the following ways:
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Piloting a new pathway to support people living with Long Covid
This week’s blog is written by @StrongZoestrong and colleagues from @pogo_health. Their website can be accessed by clicking here.
“I got great help, especially learning the breathing exercises and how to use my lungs properly. I’d recommend the service to anyone. In fact, my neighbour had COVID, and I told her all about it, about the breathing and how to plan your day”. – Catherine, 67
You only have to watch the recent BBC Panorama Forgotten heroes of the covid front line to discover that Long Covid hasn’t just gone away. It is in fact very much still present in our communities and even more so if, like us, you work in the health or social care sectors.
In Scotland in 2022, our GPs were struggling with ideas on how to better support Long Covid patients and were overwhelmed with appointments. The only referrals that they could make involved significant waiting times. At the same time, charities such as Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland (CHSS), who had the resource and skills to help were not getting referrals through from primary care.
Pogo Digital Healthcare, NHS Lothian and Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland in partnership, created an integrated digital care pathway, enabling patients to receive tailored support straight away, using a mobile application MyTailoredTalks to connect services across sectors.
MyTailoredTalks features a self-assessment questionnaire, which upon completion generates tailored information to support each individual patient. The content may include information about common symptoms including fatigue, breathlessness, and difficulty concentrating, as well as advice catering to issues such as getting back to work and coping financially.
The platform also offers a symptom tracker and includes an area where patients can request a call-back from the Long Covid Advice Line provided by Chest Heart & Stroke specialist nurses.
This short film explains how the pathway works MyTailoredTalks for Long Covid
Over 26 GP practices and 200 patients have now used the pathway, and feedback so far has been positive. Whilst this pathway has not been designed to tackle complex cases of Long Covid, it has been shown to support people struggling with some of the most common symptoms. The hope is that over time, pathways such as ours will provide enough support to less complex cases, freeing up capacity in the system to better support those requiring more specialist interventions.
To find out more about our pilot please read our recently published White Paper Supporting Recovery from Long COVID: A digital care pathway
This short film explains how the pathway has supported one patient.
The quotes below are from other people who have used the pathway.
“It felt very supportive to speak to someone from CHSS and know that someone understood and was sympathetic to what I was going through. Having this service is a must for people in my situation. We all need that support.” – Chloe, 26
“I felt very lucky to be accepted on to the pilot programme, and I feel it had made a difference to me. The guy I spoke to at CHSS reassured me I was doing the right thing in managing my symptoms and gave me good advice about putting things into practice, which isn’t always easy to do.” – Mark, 52
We warmly welcome questions and/or feedback around our products and projects. We also have a mailing list if you would like to be kept up to date with our latest developments. Please get in touch at info@pogodigitalhealth.com or follow us on Twitter @pogo_health or LinkedIn. Our website can be accessed by clicking here.
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“If you don’t tell people the truth about COVID, how can you expect people to make good judgements about risk.” Kernow Jones
This week’s blog is by Dr Evonne T Curran (@EvonneTCurran).
For me this pandemic is a simple ‘consequent argument’ (if P then Q), i.e., if airborne transmission is evident, then recommend airborne precautions. The challenge is that this argument is not universally accepted even though airborne transmission is considered the main route in this UK government document on ventilation. However, the importance of this argument has begun to seem moot in the eyes of many, as precautions have been lifted, personal experience of COVID, is ‘it’s not that bad’, and the government’s position of ‘let it rip’ has not killed anyone they know (yet). So, this blog must show that the ‘consequent’ argument’ is still worth fighting for. Which brings us to the above quote – what is the ‘current truth’ about COVID?
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Getting back to work with Long Covid: Where is the creativity?
Today I attended, nearly three years into my Long Covid journey, a workshop run by my local Long Covid clinic and the Richmond Fellowship on employment. One of the key messages was that it is possible for people to return to work with Long Covid but that this needs creativity.
After attending the workshop, I went onto Facebook only to find yet another NHS worker with Long Covid has been dismissed because they can’t say when they will be back at work. Last week I posted on Twitter stating:
In the past few days numerous NHS staff with #LongCovid have posted on Facebook saying HR are preventing their return to work by insisting they can only have a 4-6 week phased return at 50% of their normal hours. This is setting people up to fail and goes against all the best practice guidelines. Anyone would think we didn’t have a workforce crisis let alone a moral obligation to support our staff. #NHSHeroToZero
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