PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Kartik Kumar AU - Prashanthi Ratnakumar AU - Piera Ricci AU - Mustafa Al-Zubaidy AU - Karthikan Srikanthan AU - Shweta Agrawal AU - Iman Ahmedani AU - Isobel Baxter AU - Enrique Monem AU - Meg Coleman AU - Sarah L Elkin AU - Onn Min Kon AU - Patrick Mallia AU - Jamilah Meghji AU - Clare Ross AU - Georgina K Russell TI - Recovering from COVID-19: lessons learnt from an intensive secondary care follow-up service AID - 10.7861/fhj.2021-0197 DP - 2022 Oct 10 TA - Future Healthcare Journal PG - fhj.2021-0197 4099 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2022/10/07/fhj.2021-0197.short 4100 - http://www.rcpjournals.org/content/early/2022/10/07/fhj.2021-0197.full AB - In response to the first COVID-19 surge in 2020, secondary care outpatient services were rapidly reconfigured to provide specialist review for disease sequelae. At our institution, comprising hospitals across three sites in London, we initially implemented a COVID-19 follow-up pathway that was in line with expert opinion at the time but more intensive than initial clinical guidelines suggested. We retrospectively evaluated the resource requirements for this service, which supported 526 patients from April 2020 to October 2020. At the 6-week review, 193/403 (47.9%) patients reported persistent breathlessness, 46/336 (13.7%) desaturated on exercise testing, 167/403 (41.4%) were discharged from COVID-19-related secondary care services and 190/403 (47.1%) needed 12-week follow-up. At the 12-week review, 113/309 (36.6%) patients reported persistent breathlessness, 30/266 (11.3%) desaturated on exercise testing and 150/309 (48.5%) were discharged from COVID-19-related secondary care services. Referrals were generated to multiple medical specialties, particularly respiratory subspecialties. Our analysis allowed us to justify rationalising and streamlining provisions for subsequent COVID-19 waves while reassured that opportunities for early intervention were not being missed.