A Lothian psychiatrist is to lead efforts to help hundreds of Scots recover from the mental effects of spending time in intensive care with covid-19.

The Scottish Government has tasked Dr Nadine Cossette, a liaison psychiatrist at the Royal Infirmary Edinburgh, with developing a proposal for a national care pathway for patients who hospitalised with coronavirus.

Over than 500 people have been discharged from intensive care or high-dependency units in Scotland after contracting the virus.

Making the announcement today the First Minister said the already traumatic experience of intensive care had been compounded by no prospect of patients being visited by loved ones.

“Many will make a full recovery with the help of loved ones,” Nicola Sturgeon said. “But we know some will need additional support.

“Scotland already has a very effective programme which is used by several health boards for helping people who have been in intensive care.

“The InS:PIRE programme uses specialist from different disciplines; it puts former intensive care patients in touch with other people who have had the same experiences and encourages them to join community organisations or other groups which can help them through.

“And so we plan to learn from that in supporting covid patients. I think it’s an important way of ensuring people who have had covid get the long term help they need to help them recover.”

Dr Nadine Cossette – who has been involved in developing a similar new pathway for patients in NHS Lothian – will look at how mental health support provision for covid-19 patients, including social prescribing and peer support, could be applied across Scotland.

The Government has said it expects to publish a rehabilitation and recovery framework to guide services on managing the physical, mental and social effects of covid-19 in early August.

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