Chamber and committees

To take an example, I know that breathlessness is not the only major symptom of long Covid, but it is one of them and, when I had a meeting with a GP practice recently, the staff said that it was the main one that they were coming across. Are those patients referred to a respiratory specialist? Does that respiratory specialist need more education on anything to do with long Covid, or can they continue as normal, dealing with the respiratory condition?

Are there good networks both inside and outside Scotland for those kinds of specialists?

Dr Small wants to come in.

That is great. Thank you.

My questions probably follow on from Brian Whittle’s, because I want to ask a bit about where we are with the education side of things. We had a paper from Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland—it gave evidence earlier—which said that

“most GPs have heard of Long Covid”.

That jumped out at me. I would be worried if some GPs had not heard of long Covid. Can you explain to us how GPs are educated on conditions, how their skills are kept up to date and that kind of thing?

If I broke my arm or had cancer, I would not be the expert; the GP or the specialist would be the expert. Why is that different with long Covid?

Thank you. Dr Shackles, in your submission, you say that

“Most people gradually recover, but a small percentage continue to have long term symptoms.”

Is that based on data and studies?

An issue that has come up quite a lot is whether we should have dedicated long Covid clinics. In your paper, you say:

“Patients need a GP assessment and investigation, rather than being funnelled inappropriately into a clinic that is designed for one condition”.

I assume that that refers to the fact that people can have multiple issues, one of which might be long Covid, but that, if they go straight to a long Covid clinic, a lot of other stuff might be missed. You also go on to say:

“We note that the English clinics have been hugely expensive for the number of patients treated”.

Therefore, is it your argument that we should stick to the GP model and not go down the route of a long Covid clinic model?

I see that Ms Judson wants to come in. I was going to come back to you anyway, Ms Judson. You can say something else if you want, but my final question is about the fact that your paper is critical of the committee for not meeting enough sufferers of long Covid. How many do you think that we should meet? Should we meet 100? Should we meet 1,000? How many should we meet?

I am afraid that I have run out of my 10 minutes.