Adults' Services
Post-COVID Syndrome Service
Post-COVID assessment clinics are in place for those patients requiring further MDT assessment.
About our service
Birmingham Community Health Care (BCHC) Post Covid Service provides holistic assessment and support for adults over 16 experiencing symptoms related to post covid syndrome. Following a comprehensive assessment by one of our experienced post covid clinicians, our mission is to empower individuals through personalised education and self-management tools to build confidence and cultivate self-awareness in the effective management of post covid syndrome.
Referrals are accepted from GP practices or secondary care services within the Birmingham and Solihull area. Referral forms have been sent directly to practices and are available on clinical systems within the referral area. From here, referrals are triaged by the clinic team and are either accepted (if all mandatory information is provided) or else the referral sent back requesting further mandatory information. Patients will be contacted via telephone soon after to complete an initial questionnaire and book in a suitable time for an initial consult with their allocated post covid clinician. Our team have an expertise in this field and have a number of specialty backgrounds.
We partner with varying services throughout the district including:
- Psychological services for cognition
- Talking therapies
- Dietetics
- Musculoskeletal physiotherapy
- Pulmonary rehabilitation
- Vocational rehabilitation
- Speech and language therapy
- Specialist fatigue management including the chronic fatigue service and the continence team.
We conduct regular multidisciplinary team meetings (MDTs) with these partners to create a management and integrated recovery plan for patients, ensuring optimal support for their ongoing recovery.
We are also able to direct to community and voluntary lead programmes such as:
- English National Opera Breathe programme
- Nuffield Health programme
- Smoking cessation advice
- Social prescribing
- Birmingham City Council well-being service.
BCHC post covid service strives to create a culturally competent and inclusive environment for individuals from all backgrounds, ensuring our services are accessible and responsive to the unique needs of each individual.
Conditions treated:
- Post-COVID syndrome symptoms lasting more than 12 weeks after COVID-19 infection
- Ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 symptoms lasting 4 - 12 weeks after COVID-19 infection
- Long COVID- symptoms lasting beyond 4 weeks after COVID-19 infection
Resources
Resources for patients
- BCHC Post COVID Patient Information Pack: please note, individuals experiencing post-COVID-like symptoms should always speak with their GP first to ensure a proper assessment is completed and to rule out other potential underlying conditions .
- Long Covid Care Tool: explore symptoms of post covid syndrome via the Long Covid Care Tool website (access via your GP).
- Be Part of Research
Resources for Healthcare Professionals
Referral information for GP practices/secondary care services
Referring professionals can then forward the completed referral form to bchnt.covidspa@nhs.net.
Pathway flowchart
Post-COVID Pathway Flowchart [full-size]
Primary care coding
It is important to accurately capture data on primary care activity related to long COVID, to support demand modelling, service planning and research.
Primary care should code for all the following data categories (the ‘minimum dataset’), if applicable, when delivering care for people with ongoing symptomatic COVID-19 or post-COVID-19 syndrome:
- COVID-19 diagnosis (where this has not been previously recorded)
- 1325181000000106 Ongoing symptomatic disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (disorder)
- 1325161000000102 PostCOVID-19 syndrome (disorder)
- red flag symptoms/signs
- diagnostics/investigations
- management/referrals
- 1325031000000108 Referral to post-COVID assessment clinic (procedure)
- 1325021000000106 Signposting to Your COVID Recovery (procedure
- outcome measure score – EQ-5D-5L, EQVAS (where available)
Primary care clinicians are encouraged to use appropriate clinical templates to support coding.
Patients do not need to have had a positive SARS‑CoV‑2 test (PCR, antigen or antibody) or a previous COVID-19 diagnosis code for the post-COVID-19 syndrome codes to be used.
Secondary care coding
A treatment function code (TFC) for post-COVID services has been available since April 2021. It is defined as follows:
- TFC number: 348
- TFC name: post-COVID-19 syndrome service
- TFC description: multidisciplinary services for patients experiencing long-term health effects following COVID-19 infection, whether this was diagnosed at the time of acute illness, or the patient was initially asymptomatic. Post-COVID-19 syndrome has also been known as ‘long COVID’.
- Providers of post-COVID services should use the TFC for their service, which will enable tracking of service activity and associated onward diagnostic and referral activity. Services should also ensure complete demographic data (age, sex, ethnicity, postcode) is recorded for each patient.
- Community care coding.
- Post-COVID services should ensure implementation of SNOMED CT coding where compatible clinical information systems are in place. A post-COVID service coding minimum dataset to guide coding can be found on the Long COVID Network FutureNHS website. Clinics should ensure complete demographic data (age, sex, ethnicity, postcode) is recorded for each patient.