F. Begum¹, N. Bullen²

¹Occupational Health Physician, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton and Long Covid Project lead for Derbyshire Integrated Care System, UK

²Assistant Director for Occupational Health, Safety and Wellbeing Service, University Hospitals of Derby and Burton, UK

The Long Covid Staff Support Service at University Hospitals of Derby and Burton was set up in September 2021 to formalise support provided through the Occupational Health department to NHS and Social Care staff with Long Covid, cases of which were picked up from comments in management referrals initially.

Referrals onto the Programme are triaged by a Psychological Wellbeing Practitioners followed by review by cardio-respiratory nurse specialist or physiotherapist. The Programme consists of Long -Covid focused psychological therapy (42% access rate), weekly peer support session over Microsoft Teams with face to face option (attendance is 10-15 staff weekly), virtual physical rehabilitation group support of grades 1-4 (57% access rate), where group 4 are already in work and group 1 are struggling with day to day activities. Heart rate and oxygen saturation monitoring equipment is used during these live sessions. Baseline investigations to rule out other causes are discussed with staff members General Practitioners. Routes have been developed for onwards referral to Vocational Rehabilitation, Chronic fatigue services and Derbyshire Long Covid Community Clinic where due to the above input and liaison between services, staff members can go directly onto MDT list rather than Service waiting list.

Since its inception 170 staff members to date have made self-referrals to the service, or have been referred with consent by their line managers or local Human resources business partners. On referral,  58% were on sickness absence,  and we currently have a return to work rate of 43% after 4 weeks on the Programme.