Long Covid
Long Covid is a complex, chronic multisystemic condition with over 200 documented symptoms. Common issues include fatigue, cognitive dysfunction (“brain fog”), breathlessness, palpitations, pain and post-exertional malaise, where even limited activity causes symptoms to flare.
As of March 2024, two million people in England and Scotland are affected, including 111,000 children. Over a third have been unwell for more than two years.
Research shows the functional impact of Long Covid can be worse than stroke, comparable to Parkinson’s, with a lower quality of life than advanced cancer.
As of 2025 there are no approved biomarkers to diagnose Long Covid and no approved disease-modifying treatments. Clinical management is based on alleviating individual symptoms but services vary in quality and access is a postcode lottery. Many services have closed or scaled back so some parts of the UK have no specialist Long Covid services at all.
Long Covid Support
Long Covid Support was founded in May 2020 in response to the urgent, unmet needs of people not recovering as expected after acute Covid-19. What began as a peer-led Facebook group has grown into the UK’s largest charity representing those affected. Our work spans community support, advocacy and research, always grounded in lived experience.
Our mission is to build a supportive community and a strong network for change, accelerate the search for treatments, push for access to dedicated health and care services, enable fair access to work, welfare and wider support, and help prevent new cases of Long Covid.