14 | Nursing in Practice | Summer 2022
Staying positive Julie Taylor had just started a role as a Parkinson’ s nurse specialist setting up a community service in Hull when she got Covid. After developing brain fog and fatigue, she‘ recognised quite early on that she wasn’ t going to be able to return to practice’. Instead, she took up a home-based nursing job at a different trust, although she is currently on sick leave after a‘ big relapse’.
However, Ms Taylor is staying positive. She has launched a podcast, called‘ Living with long Covid’, and become involved with LCNM. To help manage her condition, she follows the NHS 3Ps principle: pace, plan and prioritise 5( see box, below) but has added her own fourth P: positivity.‘ Not toxic positivity, but having some positivity is really important,’ she explains.‘ I have a space in my daily planner where I put something positive every day; it might even be having a chat with my sons or that it doesn’ t take me three hours to get dressed. Celebrating the small wins...’ Following advice such as these 4Ps‘ is not a cure’, which can frustrate people, Ms Taylor acknowledges, but she adds that‘ personally, I’ m in a position where I like to try anything that can help’.
Ruth Oshikanlu, who contracted Covid-19 in March 2020 while working in London as an agency health visitor, says she struggled with fatigue for months and relapsed several times before getting a long Covid diagnosis in April 2021. However, similarly to Ms Taylor, she tries to practise gratitude.‘ I have lost many colleagues and friends to Covid. As bad as long Covid is, it puts things into perspective. Focusing on regret and anger is not going to change anything.’ Ms Oshikanlu is now self-employed and has written a programme she is looking to fund, which will offer nurses with long Covid‘ the tools and support needed to cope’.
But like Ms Taylor, she believes more central support is needed. She says healthcare services are‘ so quick to throw people away’ once they are ill.‘ The longer you’ re off sick, the less the system cares,’ she continues.‘ In fact, you become a burden where they will say you need to leave, which is why sadly a lot of organisations prefer agency staff – because they are easier to free up. Once I was unwell, I was told I was no longer needed as an agency health visitor.’
Calls for nationwide support In January this year, the APPG on coronavirus called for
Once I was unwell, I was told I was no longer needed as an agency health visitor Ruth Oshikanlu
I celebrate the small wins... it might be that it didn’ t take me three hours to get dressed Julie Taylor
long Covid to be recognised as an occupational disease – which would help standardise support and improve data collection on the condition – and a compensation scheme for frontline workers unable to work because of the illness. Likewise, Unison has been campaigning for the UK to recognise Covid as an occupational disease.‘ Most employers are sympathetic, but some health workers have been bullied and punished,’ explains the union’ s head of health Kim Sunley.‘ Some have returned to work before they’ ve fully recovered, fearful they’ ll face disciplinary action or even lose their jobs.’
However, such progress has yet to happen. In May the Equalities and Human Rights Commission( EHRC) recommended that long Covid should not be treated as a disability, a designation that would have given people with long Covid protection against discrimination in the workplace, and required employers to make reasonable adjustments, such as flexible working.
Many of the healthcare professionals who spoke to Nursing in Practice agree decision makers must do more to support healthcare workers with long Covid. Currently, NHS guidance encourages regular health and wellbeing conversations, support groups and linking with occupational health services if available. 6 Across the UK, guidance specifies that full pay for those with long Covid should still be in place – for now. General practice did receive an extra £ 120m for its Covid Capacity fund, in part to support sick pay, although this ended in September 2021, and Dr Twycross says variable sick pay across general practice is a concern for nurses with long Covid. She also highlights that some employers are choosing not to follow the guidance in England, and Dr Thompson adds that the guidance should be clearer on how to support staff flexibly.
Dr Twycross summarises:‘ The problem is consistency. There needs to be more pressure for national funding and a national strategy.’
Dr Thompson stresses, too, that healthcare professionals who are living with long Covid‘ likely caught it in the line of duty’ during some of the toughest times UK healthcare services have ever faced.‘ Being a nurse or doctor can define who you are,’ she says.‘ It’ s not just a job, it’ s a life.
‘ You’ ve given up your weekends and evenings so much over the years to train, and there’ s so much experience each nurse or doctor has to offer. We should be supporting them in any way we can.’