Long Covid is having a lasting impact on the teaching profession - Dr Patrick Roach

While the Covid-19 pandemic may have largely disappeared from the front pages and headlines as the Government has sought to pursue a strategy of living with the virus, there are millions of people still grappling with the legacy of their own brush with the disease.

The latest ONS estimates show that 1.8 million people in the UK are experiencing Long Covid.

The ONS has reported teachers and other education professionals as being among those most likely to experience Long Covid, a reflection of the front-line nature of their work in settings where social distancing has often been nigh on impossible and help from Government in implementing mitigations such as improved ventilation, woeful.

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18 per cent of NASUWT members who responded to our survey on teacher wellbeing earlier this year said they were suffering from Long Covid, indicating that tens of thousands of teachers across the country are likely to be affected.

While the Government has moved on from the pandemic, a lot of teachers suffering from Long Covid can't.While the Government has moved on from the pandemic, a lot of teachers suffering from Long Covid can't.
While the Government has moved on from the pandemic, a lot of teachers suffering from Long Covid can't.

While there is much that is yet to be understood about the condition, it is apparent that for some sufferers it has brought about a long-term decline in their health.

The ONS figures indicate that nearly one in five of those with self-reported Long Covid symptoms first caught the virus over two years ago and 43 per cent at least one year previously.

We now have millions of people living with a significant and potentially ongoing impairment to their health and we need to rethink how we support those of working age to maintain their employment and do their jobs without further compromising their wellbeing.

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Even before the pandemic our casework suggested that employers’ attitudes towards sickness and disability were often inflexible, unsupportive and in some cases, discriminatory. Since the pandemic, our research indicates that little has improved.

Of those members who indicated in our wellbeing survey that they were suffering from Long Covid, nearly two-thirds said they had not declared this to their employer.

When asked why 63 per cent said they did not see the point in doing so, 36 per cent did not want to be labelled as suffering, 33 per cent were concerned about the impact on their future prospects, and 31 per cent were concerned about punitive action from their employer.

Crucially, only 16 per cent said they did not report it to their employer because their symptoms did not impact upon their work. That means that the vast majority of teachers with Long Covid are suffering in silence at work, feeling the impact of the condition on their health and wellbeing but feeling unable to ask for their help and support they need.

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Even among those members who had reported experiencing Long Covid to their employer, nearly three in ten said their employer had not been supportive.

Less than a quarter of teachers who responded to the wellbeing survey said their school or college offers flexible working opportunities. Given that fatigue is the most common symptom reported by those experiencing Long Covid, the resistance in the majority of schools and colleges to allowing staff to permanently or temporarily change their working hours or working patterns is likely to be a significant barrier to managing and recovering their health for those living with Long Covid.

Similarly, the failure to address the culture of excessive workload and working hours in education means that teachers experiencing Long Covid symptoms are particularly likely to find it difficult to manage their condition and remain in the profession.

There is much that can be done to improve the experiences of those teachers living with Long Covid.

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We are campaigning for statutory recognition of Long Covid and for it to be included in the definition of disability under the Equality Act 2010 to help unlock greater support for sufferers. In a major step forward, an employment tribunal recently ruled that the symptoms brought about by Long Covid can be classed as a disability.

We also want to see employers stepping up to guarantee access to decent sickness absence provision and making reasonable adjustments available at work, including the right to time off and access to flexible working.

Schools and colleges are already finding it harder to fill teaching vacancies as pay declines and workload increases and a failure to support teachers with Long Covid is only likely to result in more teachers feeling forced to leave the profession they love for the sake of their health.

Dr Patrick Roach is the general secretary of the Teachers’ Union NASUWT.

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