Long covid: nearly half of doctors affected can no longer work full time, finds survey

Almost one in five doctors (18%) with long covid who responded to a survey said that they were no longer able to work, and fewer than one in three (31%) were working full time, compared with more than half (57%) before the onset of their covid illness.

Nearly half (49%) of the 603 respondents said that they had lost income as a result of long covid. The survey was conducted by the BMA in partnership with the support group Long Covid Doctors for Action during December 2022 and January 2023.1

Just over half of respondents (54%) acquired covid-19 during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, and 77% of these thought that they contracted it in the workplace. Only a small minority of doctors had access to respiratory protective equipment around the time that they caught covid-19, with only 11% having access to an FFP2 respirator and 16% to an FFP3 respirator.

The report on the findings comes with a series of demands, among them a call for long covid to be considered an occupational disease for healthcare workers and for NHS staff with long covid to be given financial support. “The UK needs to urgently recognise post-acute covid—and all of its symptoms—as an occupational disease to help doctors and healthcare workers receive the support and financial aid they need,” the report said.

In March, the Trade Union Congress called for long covid to be recognised as an industrial disease,2 and in November 2022 the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which advises government on which diseases should be classified as work related, recommended that health workers with long covid be able to claim industrial injuries benefit.3

Doctors with long covid reported a wide range of symptoms, including fatigue, headaches, muscular pain, nerve damage, and joint pain, as well as ongoing respiratory problems. But many have faced barriers in accessing treatment, with almost half of doctors not having been referred to an NHS long covid clinic.

Raymond Agius, BMA occupational medicine committee co-chair, said the government had a moral duty to look after healthcare staff who were put at risk throughout the pandemic. “During the covid-19 pandemic, doctors were left exposed and unprotected at work . . . This report underlines the devastating consequences of this lack of protection. Doctors still living with continuing symptoms have once again been left at risk with little to no support from the system that they gave so much to,” he said. “Those well enough to return to work need support in doing so, while those who are still too sick need adequate financial compensation to ensure they are not driven to bankruptcy by an illness they caught in the line of duty.”

Kelly Fearnley, a doctor with long covid and chair of Long Covid Doctors for Action, said she and fellow campaigners felt “betrayed and completely abandoned.” She said, “One would think, given the circumstances under which we fell ill and current workforce shortages, NHS employers would be eager to do everything to facilitate the return to work of people with long covid. However, NHS employers are legally required to implement only ‘reasonable adjustments,’ and so things such as extended phased return or adjustments to shift patterns are not always being facilitated. Instead, an increasing number of employers are choosing to terminate contracts.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said that it was funding £50m of research to better understand the long term effects of covid-19 and how to treat it. “NHS staff are able to seek support for long covid from their GP or one of the 100 specialist clinics available nationwide. The NHS has also committed £324m to support people with ongoing symptoms of long covid.”