Long Covid needs urgent action to tackle stigma, new report finds

Ministers have been urged to create a single point of contact for people that suffer with long Covid across every health board in the country.

The Covid-19 Recovery Committee has released its report on long Covid, which sets out a variety of measures for the Scottish Government to better the condition and make health professionals more aware of it.

It’s estimated that around 172,000 people in Scotland have self-reported suffering from long Covid.

The inquiry which lasted four months and was launched in January, focuses on ways to recognise, therapise and rehabilitate those who are impacted by the condition.

Some recommendations from the report include a campaign to raise awareness on the impacts that long Covid has on people who suffer from it.

It also recommends a point of contact in every health board in Scotland that would allow sufferers to access care.

Jim Fairlie MSP and convener of the Covid-19 Recovery Committee said: “What sufferers need is somebody to contact or somebody that they can be put in touch with, who can triage them to then go to their specialist.

“The committee heard numerous cases where people had doctors who had never heard of long Covid.

“I think what there needs to be is a much better understanding, perhaps some CPD for general practitioners to be able to direct them, and for all health authorities to have a similar triaging system of support for people who have got long Covid.”

Charities and groups that help people who are suffering from the condition agree that further steps need to be taken.

Anne Ritchie is the cofounder of The Cheyne Gang, a community singing group for those living with respiratory conditions. She said: “I think there’s been a lot of wasted resources around long Covid, there’s nothing for people who suffer and there’s nowhere they can go to get joined up care.

“We were getting lots of queries, so we decided to put together a website where we put together little bite sized videos.

“We’ve got a respiratory therapist to create a video for us, we’ve looked at voice problems so we got speech and language therapists to do that too, so we put everything into our website that people can just dip in and out of and pace themselves [when doing the exercises].”

Connor Silcock