Review of long COVID services

Update – June 2025

In May 2025 NHS Cheshire and Merseyside’s Board approved a proposal to develop an integrated post-viral fatigue service. This will build on existing services for people with ME/CFS (myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome), to provide support for adults suffering from long COVID (a separate long COVID service for children and young people is provided by Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation Trust).

The new service will also include enhanced psychology and therapy-led support, wellbeing co-ordination and specialist support for people across Cheshire and Merseyside.

We are currently working with the existing ME/CFS Service at NHS University Hospitals of Liverpool Group to develop this service. Further updates will be made to this page as these plans are progressed.

Information:

If you are concerned about symptoms of long COVID, click here for advice.

Background information

Long COVID services launched in 2020, to support patients who were suffering ongoing effects of the virus months after being infected, with symptoms including breathlessness, poor sleep, fatigue, a cough, or anxiety and low mood.

Dedicated national funding was allocated to run these services. In Cheshire and Merseyside, they were accessed through a GP referral, and provided through a number of hubs

Due to a significant drop in referrals, and as national funding was no longer ring-fenced for these services from 1 April 2025, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside held a review to look at how long COVID support was provided in the future.

Current long COVID hub arrangements have ended, meaning that these services are no longer taking referrals. Instead, GPs will refer patients to alternative services, depending on their clinical needs. Patients who were under the care of a long covid hub should have been contacted by their hub team to let them know about these changes including, where appropriate, being sign posted to alternative services.

Information:

Further sources of information can be found on our long COVID support page.

Public engagement

NHS Cheshire and Merseyside involved the public, patients and staff in the review process.

We attended a number of local long COVID support groups to discuss the changes and understand more about what patients need to support their ongoing and future recovery, and an online questionnaire was available for people to complete between 14 February and 16 March 2025. You can read a report into the questionnaire findings below.