Long COVID Recovery: Collaborating and Connecting with Patients, Communities and Healthcare Workers in South East London (ID 476)
Guy's & St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust
Funding: Funded by NHS Charities Together and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS charity
Abstract
The South East London Long COVID programme aims to accelerate recovery from Long COVID through 5 innovative workstreams:1) Collaborating with patients with lived experience of Long COVID
This workstream involved bringing together patients, carers and healthcare professionals from primary and secondary care who attended seven online workshops and co-created resources to educate and raise awareness of long COVID. Following on from this a patient advisory group was established to support service development and create 10 films for early intervention to aid recovery.
2) Exploring inequity in care
Lambeth Data Net records were accessed to compare demographics between primary and secondary care. Early results show differences in Long COVID ethnicity patterns, which warrants further investigation.
3) Connecting with local communities
We worked with the Lambeth Health Bus to connect with the local community. We talked to 109 people and found 11% were experiencing long COVID in comparison to 2.9% nationally (ONS data, 2023). However, 21% had not heard of long COVID.
4) Supporting healthcare workers in the workplace
We visited two nursing homes and interviewed staff to establish their health needs post pandemic. They requested support to aid recovery from long COVID, such as a place for relaxation and meditation whilst at work.
5) Raising awareness and providing education for the local communities
We delivered educational long COVID workshops to raise awareness with Health Ambassadors who connect with local communities and we are evaluating the impact long term.
Lessons learned include the importance of patient involvement and building trust with communities, utilising community inequality initiatives, creating simple and accessible patient information and providing workplace support for frontline workers.
Next Steps include further exploring primary care coding to identify inequities, providing more education and support for the workforce connecting with local communities and ensuring early intervention to prevent Long COVID.
Conflicts of interest: None
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