<
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20251201/Long-COVID-patients-face-more-than-double-the-healthcare-costs-after-diagnosis.aspx>
"People with Long COVID use the health service significantly more than they did
before their diagnosis. These patients need to use GP, outpatient, inpatient
and emergency department services more than people in other control groups -
and the costs of their healthcare use have more than doubled.
These are the findings of a major study which have serious implications for
health service resourcing, globally. Long COVID affects 1.9 million people in
the UK, and at least 65 million individuals worldwide are estimated to have had
Long COVID after the first pandemic wave.
The study published today, 28 November 2024, in the
Journal of the Royal
Society of Medicine analysed how 280,000 people with Long COVID use healthcare
services in the UK. The researchers found that people with Long COVID have
health service needs costing a median of £705, annually. Before being diagnosed
with Long COVID, those same people had median annual NHS costs of £294.
For comparison, the study looked at various control groups. This included over
a million people with COVID - but not Long COVID. These people had median
healthcare costs of £447 per year.
Of all the people considered, those with Long COVID had the highest
hospitalization rates over two years. Annually, individuals with Long COVID had
more GP consultations (a median of 9.90) and outpatient appointments (a median
of 1.07) per person than all control groups. The analysis showed that people
with Long COVID had higher emergency department attendance than all control
groups, and significantly higher inpatient admissions than all but one control
group.
What makes Long COVID so costly for the health service - and so incapacitating
for patients - is that is a heterogeneous, complex condition which affects
multiple organs. These are probably caused by multiple underlying mechanisms.
And while there has been scientific progress, this new syndrome is still not
fully defined."
Via Violet Blue's
Threat Model - Covid: December 4, 2025
https://www.patreon.com/posts/covid-december-4-144962976
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
