Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of NHS staff who have long covid as on 13 July 2022; what steps his Department is taking to support those staff; and whether his Department plans for support to be time limited.

No specific estimate has been made. While the Office for National Statistics has published estimates of the proportion of people self-reporting the long term effects of COVID-19 infection by sector, this does not specifically identify National Health Service staff.

The NHS has recently reviewed and updated its guidelines for supporting staff affected by post-COVID-19 syndrome. It details a range of support offers and services available to support their health and wellbeing. This includes access to occupational health and wellbeing services and local employee assistance programmes, dedicated rapid assessment through one of 40 system-wide staff mental health and wellbeing hubs, access to support via online rehab services and support available from general practice and local NHS services. We continue to keep this provision under review.