Long Covid: Children and Young People
(asked on 30th May 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that children and young people with long covid have access to age-appropriate care and treatment.
The most recent data from the Winter COVID-19 Infection Study, a joint study carried out by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and the UK Health Security Agency, shows that, for the period 6 February 2024 to 7 March 2024, an estimated two million people, or 3.3% of the population, in private households in England and Scotland, self-reported experiencing long COVID symptoms more than four weeks after a COVID-19 infection. The following table shows a breakdown by age group of the number of people with self-reported long COVID symptoms, more than four weeks after a COVID-19 infection:
Age group | Estimate |
3 to 17 years old | 111,816 |
18 to 34 years old | 406,538 |
35 to 44 years old | 294,099 |
45 to 54 years old | 397,802 |
55 to 64 years old | 389,977 |
65 to 74 years old | 271,374 |
75 years old and over | 113,467 |
While no estimate has been made specifically for Hertfordshire, the same dataset from the ONS estimated that 202,852 people self-reported experiencing long COVID symptoms in the East of England region in that same time period.
NHS England has invested £314 million since the start of the pandemic to provide care and support for people with long COVID. This includes establishing specialist clinics throughout England to assess children and young people who are experiencing the long-term effects of COVID-19 infection. A further £86.7 million of funding was included in integrated care board (ICB) core allocations for 2024/25, and specific regional funding was also allocated for assurance and system support.
As of 1 April 2024, there were over 90 adult post-COVID services across England, along with an additional 10 children and young people’s hubs. Since April 2024, commissioning of long COVID services has been the responsibility of local ICBs, following the closure of the national programme.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is responsible for keeping its published guidelines up to date and under active surveillance, to ensure that they reflect developments in the evidence base and its recommendations on new medicines.
The NICE is changing the way that it develops guidelines to ensure that they respond more rapidly to the latest evidence and newly recommended technologies, to help speed up access for patients.