Standing shoulder to shoulder with healthcare workers with Long Covid in the UK
This blog is the second in a series outlining how we will be helping UK healthcare workers living with Long Covid in the UK. Part 1 was published yesterday (see here) and covers our first two aims. Today we discuss our remaining three aims.
Disseminate research and raise awareness of Long Covid
Long Covid is a relatively new disease and research is emerging all the time. We provide summaries of new research studies on our website. Our research posts can be viewed and searched here. Keep an eye on our X (Twitter) feed to see when these are published.
All the information and resources on our website are underpinned by current evidence and best practice guidelines. We are working on new resources at the moment. Visit our knowledge base (see below) to search for the information currently available – this knowledge base will grow as we are able to add more definitive information to it.
Support and advocate for healthcare workers living with Long Covid
Our knowledge base
Our website provides information for HCWs living with Long Covid, their managers and other HCWs. As mentioned above, using the search function in our knowledge base is a good starting place.
We are still developing some of our materials. Information currently available includes:
- returning to work with Long Covid
- managing workplace meetings
- ill health retirement
- Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) revalidation.
We also provide links to other useful information such as the RCN’s resources:
- Long Covid: A Guide about Long Covid
- Supporting staff who are living Long Covid: Guidance for Managers
Our forums
We have recently launched our forums which we hope will become a safe space for the exchange of information, advice and support for the healthcare community who are living with Long Covid. These forums are private to ensure a safe space, so you will need to register to access them. There are two options for this:
- If you just want to be a supporter of SHH-UK, and you will not need access to the financial and other specific assistance we will be offering to UK HCWs living with long Covid, you can register on the site using this form.
- If you are or were a UK HCW living with Long Covid who may need to access our services at some point, you can apply to become a full member by completing the form here. (We will need some proof of your employment and your condition for full membership – and this will need to be verified before your membership is granted.)
Once you have registered you’ll get access the appropriate forums. These are a work in progress but for now there are three trustee led discussions focusing on:
- NMC Revalidation
- Returning to work with Long Covid
- Cognitive dysfunction (linked to our support group).
Feel free to add to these discussions with your experience or questions, or to start discussions of your own. We’ll be adding to these forums over the next few weeks so if there is a topic you’d like to see please start a discussion or let us know using the contact us form here.
Coaching and counselling
We understand that living with Long Covid can be stressful and often requires a large number of changes both professionally and personally. Given this we are planning on providing coaching and counselling for HCWs in this situation. This is currently a work in progress. Keep an eye on our website and social media accounts for additional information.
Meeting with key policymakers and liaising with relevant unions and professional bodies
Our chair has met with several key policymakers over the past 2 years. As a charity we will continue to ensure the voices of HCWs with Long Covid are heard, as well as promoting an evidence based approach to decision-making.
Our chair is co-chair of the Royal College of Nursing’s Long Covid working group. We also have contacts with several other unions and are keen to expand this area of our work.
For the past couple of years we have been working closely with the NMC to ensure they understand the complexity of, for example, revalidating with Long Covid. Going forward we would like to work closely with the Health Care Professionals Council and the General Medical Council.
Advocate for improvements in indoor air quality
Along with other Long Covid charities, we remain aghast are how little is being done to improve indoor air quality in the UK. We signed the Covid Pledge several months ago and continue to raise awareness of the issue via our blogs and social media accounts.
The need to avoid covid reinfections and to support the use of non-pharmacological covid protections has been the focus of several of our meetings with policymakers and unions, and will be the subject of a future blog published on our site shortly.
Our infection prevention and control (IPC) advocate, Dr Evonne Curran has written a blog on indoor air quality which will be published tomorrow.
Going forward, we plan to add more information to our website about both IPC and indoor air quality. Dr Evonne T Curran has written a series of blogs regarding the airborne transmission of covid-19 – these can be accessed by clicking here. You might also want to read Evonne’s editorial in Evidence-Based Nursing regarding the lack of evidence used in current IPC guidelines.
Feel free to get in touch with us
You can use our contact us page available here, or via email or via our social media channels, linked at the bottom of the page. Sign up to our newsletter below to receive our updates automatically.