The five hospitals and their charities are based in southeast London and are Guy’s & St Thomas’ Charity, King’s College Hospital Charity, Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust Charity, Maudsley Charity, Oxleas NHS Trust Charity.
It is hoped the five will be able to harness expertise in the area to develop a gold standard for multi-disciplinary care.
Professor Nick Hart, deputy medical director of the heart, lung and critical care clinical group at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Working in south east London we serve one of the most diverse populations in the world, but alongside this comes stark health inequalities.
“Thanks to generous donations by the public, we will be setting up a dedicated holistic, evidence-based treatment pathway to ensure people from all communities living with long Covid get the very best care, co-designed by patients themselves.”
Long Covid refers to the symptoms that a patient suffers from after initially recovering from the virus.
The main symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath and brain fog.
According to the Office for National Statistics, an estimated two million people were experiencing long Covid as of July 31.
Of those, over 8 in 10 (83 per cent) reported experiencing long Covid symptoms at least 12 weeks after first having suspected Covid and over four in 10 (45 per cent) at least one year after.
Just over a fifth (22 percent) reported experiencing symptoms at least two years after their suspected infection.
