Additional support to help you throughout your COVID-19 recovery

Acute COVID-19 is defined as having symptoms for up to four weeks, ongoing COVID-19 when symptoms last between 4-12 weeks and post COVID-19 syndrome or long COVID when symptoms last more than 12 weeks. Long COVID is also called post-COVID syndrome, chronic COVID or post-acute COVID.

Public Health England says at least 10% of non-hospitalised patients have reported symptoms lasting more than four weeks. There are fluctuations in symptoms reported by 70% of patients and changes in the intensity of them were reported 89% of the time. The UK COVID symptom app has four million regular contributors and 10-20% report complications for longer than a month (100K-200K people).

More information about data extracted from the COVID symptom app can be watched on our 'Diet and COVID' talk found on our Nutrition and COVID-19 Recovery webpage.

Long COVID clinics

There are long COVID clinics across the country, the locations of these clinics can be found on the NHS England website. 

This is not a complete list; new clinics are opening in other locations at regular intervals. Check on your local hospital website if your area is not on the list. You can ask your GP to refer you.

COVID-19 rehabilitation empowers the patient with understanding symptoms and coping strategies to aid their rehabilitation.

• If you are older and are concerned about malnutrition or anything else diet-related, Age UK offers strategies to encourage eating more and thinking about diet. They can support shopping: escorted services, home delivery services and internet shopping. They accept self-referrals.
• There is a Patient-led Research Collaborative website developed by researchers who have had long COVID themselves and it aims to provide more reliable information about long COVID, with invitations to take part in ethically approved surveys or studies.
• The NHS supporting your recovery after COVID-19 website provides advice on symptoms of post COVID syndrome or long COVID such as eating well, taste and smell changes, swallowing, etc.
• The Post-COVID Hub website provides high quality information from the British Lung Foundation for people who cannot eat or drink properly.
• The LongCovidSOS website includes a list of post COVID clinics as well as list of online support resources in different languages that some UK or international organisations have provided, mainly about respiratory health and rehabilitation but with useful links to support groups across the world.
• This COVID-19: Supporting your recovery online course, developed for patients, contains general advice for COVID recovery and long COVID. It includes a section on eating well with infographics, images and tips for various dietary concerns. In particular it explains the importance of linking diet to to physiotherapy recommendations. 
• There was an online webinar where our top expert and registered dietitian Elaine Anderson attended along with other experts to talk about long COVID. Watch the webinar on YouTube.
• A COVID-19 recovery and rehabilitation programme was developed by NHS Leicester in partnership with the BDA and other organisations. It contains e-learning sessions to address breathlessness, coughs and fatigue, as well as some recommendations for exercise in people recovering from COVID-19. 
• The Eat Well Guide is a NHS sponsored website to learn tips, recommendations and recipes for a healthy diet.
• The Scottish charity Nutrition and Diet Resources contains various resources for swallowing difficulties and gastrointestinal issues at a cost.

Other websites that are not focused on nutrition but contain reputable information and have links to support groups are:

Social media can help you to talk to other people with similar experiences to yourself. This can be a great help, especially if you do not know anyone else who is going through the same thing as you.

It is worth remembering that while some suggestions about managing your symptoms might be useful, others may not be right for you. This means that you should always check with your doctor or health care practitioner before following any advice about taking supplements, excluding foods or taking substances that have been recommended by others.

Here are some examples of social media groups for people who have had COVID-19:

• Long Covid Support Group
• The Advocacy Exchange 
• The National Patient Advocate Foundation COVID Care Resource Center
• Long-haul COVID fighters Facebook groups
• Survivor Corps 
• Patient-Led Research for COVID-19
• Long Covid Wales – they helped develop the Covid Recovery app for NHS Wales
• Long Covid Ireland
• Long Covid Scotland

• NIHR Evidence - Living with Covid19 - webinars - Informative and accessible health and care research [Internet]. [cited 2021 Apr 26]. Available from: https://evidence.nihr.ac.uk/themedreview/living-with-covid19-webinars
  
  
• COVID-19 rapid guideline: managing the long-term effects of COVID-19. :35.