People who remain chronically ill after Covid infections in England have had to wait months for appointments and treatment at specialist clinics set up to handle the surge in patients with long Covid.
MPs called on Matt Hancock, the health secretary, to explain the lengthy waiting times and what they described as a “shameful postcode lottery” which left some patients facing delays of more than four months before being assessed at a specialist centre while others were seen within days.
NHS England announced in December that people with long Covid, or post-Covid syndrome, could seek help at more than 60 specialist clinics. But despite government assertions in January that the network of 69 centres was already operating, the all-party parliamentary group on coronavirus found that some clinics were still not up and running three months later.
Freedom of information requests submitted to NHS trusts revealed that while some clinics had opened and were seeing patients, others had been delayed by the second wave of infections in January.
Source: The Guardian, 30 May 2021
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