Why long Covid could be a chronic issue for UK plc

After con­tract­ing Covid at the start of this year, William Pick­thorn, an account exec­u­tive at PR firm Mike­World­Wide, was sur­prised by the length and sever­i­ty of his ill­ness. Even though he was a rel­a­tive­ly healthy per­son – he’d run the Lon­don Marathon in Octo­ber 2021 – his fit­ness declined rapid­ly. He expe­ri­enced reg­u­lar bouts of breath­less­ness and extend­ed peri­ods of extreme fatigue.

“My whole body stopped work­ing prop­er­ly. I strug­gled to walk at all,” he recalls. “My limbs con­stant­ly felt numb, I had dif­fi­cul­ty breath­ing and my heart was beat­ing like mad.” 

Pick­thorn is among an esti­mat­ed 1.8 mil­lion Britons who have expe­ri­enced long Covid symp­toms, accord­ing to the Office for Nation­al Sta­tis­tics (ONS). Two-thirds of suf­fer­ers claim that their ongo­ing con­di­tion is adverse­ly affect­ing their day-to-day activ­i­ties, with 19% report­ing that their capac­i­ty to per­form these has been “lim­it­ed a lot”.

For many peo­ple, this means an inabil­i­ty to do their reg­u­lar work. Long Covid is thought to be one cause of the UK’s high rate of eco­nom­ic inac­tiv­i­ty. ONS data indi­cates that 447,000 more peo­ple aged 16 to 64 were classed as eco­nom­i­cal­ly inac­tive between Feb­ru­ary and April this year than there were between Decem­ber 2019 and Feb­ru­ary 2020, imme­di­ate­ly before the pan­dem­ic start­ed. Although oth­er fac­tors, includ­ing the great res­ig­na­tion and a wave of ear­ly retire­ments, have played their part, it’s esti­mat­ed that long-term sick­ness absence has account­ed for two-thirds of this increase.

It’s becom­ing a prob­lem for employ­ers. In Feb­ru­ary, a sur­vey of more than 800 enter­pris­es by the Char­tered Insti­tute of Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment (CIPD) found that 46% of them had employ­ees who’d expe­ri­enced long Covid in the pre­ced­ing 12 months. More than a quar­ter of respon­dents cit­ed it as one of the main caus­es of long-term sick­ness absence in their organ­i­sa­tions.

The growing issue of long Covid

Rachel Suff is a senior CIPD pol­i­cy advis­er spe­cial­is­ing in employ­ee rela­tions. She warns that long Covid is “a grow­ing issue that employ­ers need to be aware of. They should take appro­pri­ate steps to sup­port employ­ees with the con­di­tion. There’s a risk that those who expe­ri­ence ongo­ing symp­toms may not receive the sup­port they need and could even fall out of work.” 

The sur­vey also found that 26% of respon­dents were pro­vid­ing guid­ance to line man­agers on how to sup­port staff with long-term health prob­lems. But, giv­en that a recent Scot­tish employ­ment tri­bunal ruled that an employ­ee suf­fer­ing from long Covid was dis­abled in the eyes of the law, this per­cent­age will need to increase.

The land­mark deci­sion in favour of Ter­ence Burke in his claim of dis­crim­i­na­tion and unfair dis­missal against Turn­ing Point Scot­land means that peo­ple suf­fer­ing Covid symp­toms for an extend­ed peri­od can be deemed dis­abled under the Equal­i­ty Act 2010 if these have a sub­stan­tial impact on their dai­ly activ­i­ties. Employ­ers must there­fore be pre­pared to make rea­son­able adjust­ments to help such indi­vid­u­als in their work.

“Employ­ers must apply the same con­sid­er­a­tions to employ­ees with long Covid as they would to those with any oth­er long-term med­ical con­di­tion,” explains Helen Snow, an employ­ment lawyer and part­ner at Gel­dards. “That means ensur­ing that they have com­pre­hen­sive poli­cies in place cov­er­ing sick­ness, absence and long-term sick leave.”

Safe­guards for employ­ees under the act include the right not to be treat­ed less favourably because of their dis­abil­i­ty; the right not to be sub­ject­ed to any pro­vi­sion, cri­te­ri­on or prac­tice that puts them at a par­tic­u­lar dis­ad­van­tage com­pared with oth­er work­ers; and pro­tec­tions against harass­ment.

Snow adds: “We have seen sev­er­al high-pro­file cas­es of dis­crim­i­na­tion and unfair dis­missal linked to Covid-19, includ­ing cas­es where employ­ees have been forced back to work. Employ­ers must ensure that they deal fair­ly and in accor­dance with their own poli­cies to ensure that they don’t become the sub­ject of any future cas­es.”

How to support workers with long Covid

From an HR per­spec­tive, the focus should be on “sup­port­ing that employ­ee, so that they can con­tin­ue con­tribut­ing to the organ­i­sa­tion while main­tain­ing their well­be­ing”, says Emma Par­ry, pro­fes­sor of HR man­age­ment at Cran­field Uni­ver­si­ty.  

The fact that long Covid is a rel­a­tive­ly new ill­ness with a wide range of symp­toms does com­pli­cate mat­ters. This can make it hard for an organ­i­sa­tion to under­stand what adjust­ments some­one might need and how their con­di­tion, and there­fore their require­ments, could change over time.

Par­ry would encour­age an employ­er to “under­take open hon­est dis­cus­sions with the affect­ed employ­ee, along­side a for­mal occu­pa­tion­al health assess­ment to devel­op an action plan for their return to work”. This might include a phased return to work, a move to part-time and/or flex­i­ble employ­ment, a reduc­tion in work­load or the free­dom to pause work if need be.

Over the longer term, ongo­ing com­mu­ni­ca­tion will be key in track­ing any changes in the individual’s needs. 

“Deal­ing with long Covid requires a flex­i­ble approach to address its unpre­dictabil­i­ty and build an under­stand­ing of how someone’s con­di­tion might progress,” Par­ry says. “Organ­i­sa­tions should work to devel­op a cul­ture that sup­ports this flex­i­bil­i­ty and pro­vides the trust and psy­cho­log­i­cal safe­ty for employ­ees to dis­cuss their health needs on an ongo­ing basis.”

Soft­ware com­pa­ny Advanced is an employ­er that has com­mit­ted itself to recruit­ing more peo­ple with chron­ic health con­di­tions. As part of a part­ner­ship with char­i­ty Astri­id, it plans to hire 15 peo­ple who are affect­ed by a dis­abil­i­ty or a last­ing ill­ness – includ­ing long Covid – over the com­ing 12 months.

“In Eng­land alone, 15 mil­lion peo­ple are liv­ing with at least one long-term health con­di­tion,” says Alex Arun­dale, chief peo­ple expe­ri­ence offi­cer at Advanced. “The con­se­quence is an invis­i­ble tal­ent pool of skilled pro­fes­sion­als who have exper­tise to con­tribute but who may need an inclu­sive work­place and some flex­i­bil­i­ty to do so.”

Accord­ing to Arun­dale, people’s vary­ing expe­ri­ences of long Covid and the prob­lems that many patients have had with obtain­ing a diag­no­sis can make it hard for an employ­er to deter­mine what the most appro­pri­ate sup­port mea­sures might be for each indi­vid­ual. 

“Our approach is about ensur­ing that we pro­vide flex­i­bil­i­ty about when and where they work. That sup­ports the truth of how they are feel­ing, rather than requir­ing a diag­no­sis,” she says.

Some of the adjust­ments that Advanced is mak­ing include judg­ing people’s per­for­mance on out­put rather than atten­dance and broad­en­ing its employ­ee assis­tance pro­gramme. “Build­ing inclu­siv­i­ty and devel­op­ing trust allows you to sup­port peo­ple with long Covid,” Arun­dale adds.

Thanks to the suc­cess­ful NHS vac­ci­na­tion pro­gramme, the worst of the cri­sis seems to be over in the UK. Indeed, despite the recent upsurge in infec­tions, many com­men­ta­tors are using the over-opti­mistic phrase ‘post-pan­dem­ic era’ already. But long Covid is a prob­lem that might last for years after the pan­dem­ic is offi­cial­ly declared over – an endur­ing lega­cy issue that employ­ers must urgent­ly address.