Embed Personalised Care approach within Long Covid clinic
Suffolk and North East Essex

The approach by East Suffolk & North Essex Foundation Trust’s (ESNEFT) Long Covid Clinic to look at alternative ways to deliver support came about following challenges recruiting clinical staff and a demand to support the clinic’s patients.  This decision was made with the recognition that ‘a sensible symptom management’ approach was needed.

 The growing evidence of the impact of patients taking part in the English National Opera Breathe Programme and the feedback from patients who participated in Virtual Clinical Assessments run by the clinic on the impact on their general wellbeing, social isolation, and confidence to self-manage their symptoms laid the foundations for the proposal to use Long Covid funding to support this programme. 

"The approach... came about following challenges recruiting clinical staff and a demand to support the clinic’s patients"

ESNEFT’s approach supported by the NHS Ipswich and East Suffolk Clinical Commissioning Group's Personalised Care Programme Manager along with the Social Prescribing Programme Manager was to develop a ‘cocktail’ of non-clinical interventions to support the growing number of Long Covid patients while also funding three Social Prescribing Link Workers dedicated to the clinic and its patients.