Purely out of curiosity: if you're a GP/ health professional, what % of your work is Covid related?

[Bookridden]

Just interested, really. I'm guessing Covid is probably responsible for 50% + of consultations, but realised that I have absolutely no idea. And how does it compare with, say, a month ago?

Id be surprised if covid was 50% of consultations if my experience is anything to go by.
When I rang my GP for advice about covid they said they couldn't do anything, don't deal with covid and I should call an ambulance or go to A&E.
In fact they could have given me some simple advice that may have helped.

Yeah, that's a shame. I spoke to my GP today about my Covid recovery, and she said it was a major reason for patients contacting them now. Just made me wonder in a totally unscientific way. Anecdotally, I'm now aware of lots of folk work Covid, which wasn't the case a month ago. Not that that means anything.

90-95% of my job is still Covid related. 100% influenced by Covid.
Not lessening. Not going away. Not getting any better.
It is what it is. You cope, you manage, you crack on.

@Damnyoureyes, thank you and all the other nhs workers out there

Of about 25 phone calls today - 5 with symptoms of infection could have been covid - ie had a fever or new cough - one I think probably was, the others probably not but none had done a test so who knows!
One was a patient with PCR confirmed covid and some complications at home.
One was a patient who had recovered from covid but their spouse was in ITU and needed to speak about that.
The others weren’t actual covid - though quite a couple of mental health consultations where it was a factor. Some of the others would usually have been under secondary care by now but due to massive waiting lists we’re still managing things in GP while they wait.
There’s not a huge amount for patients to consult us about - actual covid patients are either ok at home or need to be in hospital, and long covid there isn’t a huge amount for us to do - we send for bloods / X-ray / signpost to ‘my covid recovery’, few fit the criteria for the long covid clinics.
*only phone calls and only 25 patients because I’m a trainee GP and had just phone calls booked today because I’m recording telephone cases for my training - not workshy!

Covid rehab teams are now being set up with occupational therapists and physios to help people with long covid as the stress on the core teams is too much

0 but I don't work in a covid area. I did move to covid relief during the first wave as my substantive role was closed as non essential but once the trust started routine things again I went back and have been back over a year now.

Zero %.... I'm a nurse working in the community

Zero at our GP they won't deal with it, say all calls must go through 111. 111 doctors then argue it should be GP Though after 5 weeks of being really ill I got sick of that and said have you tried getting help from a GP with covid symptoms and then they said that is true and gave me a hospital appointment, with 6 to 8 hour wait which I was delighted to take. Got put on a drip for 8 hours, and thoroughly tested and have antibiotics but it was scary seeing other people in there with same issue, one had been refused GP and was there with oxygen mask, readings of 87, GP had just said its just a virus and will be gone by next week, being tested for blood clots etc. She was discharged at 91 still very ill and people were just being discharged outside in the cold with no-one to collect, I was sent out same time as 85 year old in a wheelchair who was shaking, no phone and clearly frightened. I stayed with her and made sure someone picked her up but the system is clearly broken at the moment.

The hospital was incredibly busy - last July had to go to hospital with breathing difficulties and they put me on covid ward and had own room and bathroom and straight through and was really like a private hospital. This year was absolutely rammed, lovely nurses trying absolute best (apart from one male nurse who told me even though I have chronic diarrhea I am not allowed to use toilets and must obey him thankfully overruled) but average wait was 6-8 hours - I was seen more quickly, think as signs of sepsis but thankfully not just covid and long covid and bacterial infection with chronic d&v.

Our GP does seem very busy but very hard to see them in person which can be fine and generally about 48 hours delay. I think there just aren't enough, very elderly population here.

Paediatric OT. No referrals for long covid in kids to us yet. I know other teams have started getting referrals though
Our caseload is still influenced by covid - 6mo of only virtual working and then 12mo of only being able to see one bubble in one school per day means my caseload is still about twice what it should be. We're expecting to have cleared the backlog by next summer

Of all the patients I have dealt with today only one was a current Covid infection asking for advice (apparently "track and trace" had rung him and, when he said he wasn't feeling better yet, told him to ring his surgery to ask for a prescription. Not quite sure what the, presumably unqualified, caller expected us to prescribe )
A few others were situations exacerbated by Covid, waiting for delayed procedures, etc but most were totally unrelated

In our surgery we have about 10-12 in our list for triaging with Covid symptoms, and about 5 seen F2F in our Covid assessment room daily on average of whom some may be confirmed positive, some suspected/with symptoms not tested. These are for the whole practice and we all take from this list. I myself speak to maybe 3/4 with post Covid Symptoms wanting advice and often see F2F 3 ish with post Covid symptoms. So I guess maybe 25% in of my own patients are Covid related as I'd probably end up with 1 or 2 off Covid list. I'm an ANP in a GP surgery. Worth noting that some of my other face to face appointments might be Covid as often a few sore throats or sinusitis creep through. But who knows these days!

It’s not just seeing people with covid. There is a shit load of work going on behind the scenes. I work somewhere we don’t even have covid but 25% of my time is taken up by covid planning, PPE etc. Just because you can’t personally see what people are doing doesn’t mean they are doing nothing I promise!

I'm definitely not looking to make any political points here or asking for any reason other than interest. It's just that Covid naturally dominates the news, and having just had it, it's obviously on my a lot, but I'm curious to know if this is borne out in primary care. Definitely no politics here please, not yet recuperated enough for that, lol.

@Bookridden

I'm definitely not looking to make any political points here or asking for any reason other than interest. It's just that Covid naturally dominates the news, and having just had it, it's obviously on my a lot, but I'm curious to know if this is borne out in primary care. Definitely no politics here please, not yet recuperated enough for that, lol.

In our trust there's an entire team dedicated to COVID - testing, supporting those I'll at home, those who think they need to go to hospital, those in hospital and those with long covid (or covid related post viral fatigue if you don't agree with long covid). And if a patient calls a primary care service in our area with covid symptoms or covid related issues they're automatically directed there meaning the majority of the trust doesn't see them at all. A&E and where someone is in for emergency or routine procedure and it's not picked up pre admission are the only times we'd really get contact these days. It's working well as a model though has taken staff away from other areas (a certain number of GPs, nurses, OT and physio etc).

Secondary care - zero of my workload is covid-related currently, but I don’t do a lot of inpatient work. My work is still very much impacted by covid restrictions though - social distancing, requirement for 50% of consultations to be telephone consults, inability to admit patients direct to the ward without a negative covid test. All of which I agree with, but it has an impact on productivity.

None of our inpatients have covid but we work in a “green” area (because our patients are immunosuppressed).

During the peak of the second wave, 800 out of 1200 beds in the hospital were covid patients (real covid patients, not “sprained ankle and asymptomatic positive pcr” as covid deniers seem to like to imagine). ICU had to triple in size by having two patients in each bed space, and expanding to fill theatre recovery, coronary care etc. I’d accept pretty much any limitations on outpatient work to avoid going back to that.