Nearly 200 patients referred to specialist Long Covid clinic in Harrogate
NHS England provided £10 million for a network of more than 60 clinics, with the first opening in November 2020
Nearly 200 people have been seen at Harrogate hospital's long covid clinic since it opened.
Before GP referrals were brought in, doctors at the trust originally spent days calling patients after they'd been discharged from hospital to see if they're symptoms were continuing, so they could get tailored support to help them in their recovery.
They support patients experiencing brain fog, anxiety, depression, breathlessness, fatigue and other debilitating symptoms.
But clinicians at Harrogate's long covid centre have said there is no time limit on how much time it will take for people to make a full recovery.
Hannah Davies, advanced specialist occupational therapist at the clinic, said:
"We have lots of patients who perhaps even had covid in March 2020 and now almost two years later are not able to work, not able to be the partner or parent they are wanting to be for their children, their breathlessness and pain is stopping them from walking very far so they might only be able to walk to the end of the street before they're tired.
"People themselves didn't know anybody else who had it and so they would come to the clinic and say they have all these symptoms and ask if anybody else has them or had we seen it and for us it was a really regular picture that people were painting that actually people were having very similar experiences but because of restrictions they were completely isolated from anyone else going through it.
"There were a lot of big groups on social media where people got together and asked 'Has anybody else got these symptoms?' and really that is how long covid got recognised by healthcare and the NHS because of that activism that was happening and it's now known as Post Covid-19 Syndrome."
NHS England provided £10 million for a network of more than 60 clinics, with the first opening in November 2020.
The centres bring together doctors, nurses, physiotherapists and occupational therapists to offer both physical and psychological assessments and refer patients to the right treatment and rehabilitation services.
Research has shown one in five people with coronavirus develop longer term symptoms. Around 186,000 people suffer problems for up to 12 weeks, the Office for National Statistics found.
Other clinics in the region can be found at York Teaching Hospital, Hull University Teaching Hospitals, Sheffield Teaching Hospitals, Rotherham Hospital, Barnsley Hospital, Doncaster and Bassetlaw Teaching Hospitals, Bradford Teaching Hospitals, Leeds Teaching Hospitals, The Mid Yokrshire Hospitals and Calderdale and Huddersfield Foundation Trust.