New resources launched to support people with Long Covid

The Queen’s Nursing Institute (QNI) has published a new resource for nurses working in the community and primary care to support their knowledge base and practice around ‘Long Covid’, or Post-Covid Syndrome.  

The new document, Living with Long Covid – A Community and Primary Care Nursing Resource, updates and expands on previous resources created by the QNI in 2020.

The resource was launched at the QNI’s Annual Conference 2022 by its author, Eve Thrupp QN, Nursing Programmes Manager (Leadership) at the QNI.  

In the community, nurses are treating, signposting, and leading on care for patients with Long Covid and supporting them to live as independently as possible.

The new Resource seeks to extend and empower that role further by providing references to literature, websites, and other resources. It has been peer reviewed and ‘tested out’ with the QNI’s Nurse Expert Group and with commissioners.  

Community nurses are highly skilled at assessing complexity of need within the home and other community healthcare settings.

A multi-factorial approach must be employed when completing assessments and supporting patients with post-covid syndrome, and the Resource seeks to encourage and facilitate this.  

It is also important to recognise that registered nurses need to collaborate with numerous other professionals, carers and volunteers to support people living with Long Covid. Therefore, the Resource signposts to many other professional sites to amplify nurses’ knowledge base.   

Eve Thrupp QN, Nursing Programmes Manager (Leadership), The QNI, said: “While much work has been done to investigate and analyse the health disparities that Covid, and Post-Covid Syndrome has caused, much still remains to be done.

“The evidence that Covid-19 has had a disproportionate impact upon Black, Indigenous, and Latinx communities serves as a stark reminder that further work and exploration is needed to investigate the serious health inequalities within health systems.”