Long Covid health staff 'abandoned and forgotten'
Healthcare workers with long Covid say the government needs to do more to support those left with life-changing disabilities since catching the virus.
Nurse Rachel Hext, 37 from Paignton, insisted she caught Covid in her job as a nurse in a small community hospital in Devon.
"We were clapped and called heroes, and now those of us who have been bereaved or disabled by it have been forgotten," she said.
The government said it knew long Covid could have a debilitating impact on people's physical and mental health, that there was a "range of support for staff" and it was funding research into it.
Mrs Hext is one of a group of healthcare workers with long Covid who have taken their fight to the High Court to try to sue the NHS and other employers for compensation.
The staff, from England and Wales, said they believed they first caught Covid at work during the pandemic and said they were not properly protected from the virus.
She said: "I want acknowledgement and I want support for the people who need it.
"Long Covid is absolutely life-changing. It's devastated us as a family."
Her symptoms range from brain fog and extreme fatigue, to nerve damage and deafness.
The Torbay and South Devon NHS Foundation Trust said: "The health and wellbeing of our staff is our priority, and we are extremely grateful to all our colleagues who worked tirelessly during the pandemic to care for our patients.
"Due to ongoing legal proceedings, we are unable to comment further on this matter."
Dr Rachel Ali, 46, of Plymouth, said she tested positive for Covid on Boxing Day 2021 before developing chest pain, cognitive impairments and chronic fatigue.
She was a partner in her GP practice but lost her job after being sick for 15 months.
She said: "I want the government to recognise this is still happening.
"We talk about Covid being in the past, but we are still in a pandemic. The global emergency has ended, the pandemic hasn't.
"People are still getting sick and never getting better."
Dr Ali has returned to work as a GP part-time but said she needed to rest in the afternoons because of chronic fatigue.
She said she was urging the government to recognise Covid as an occupational illness for healthcare workers.
She said: "Around the country, a lot of long Covid clinics are being decommissioned as if we are still not here."
She said people who were the worst affected should get compensation.
GP Ellie Mountstephens, 53, of Galmpton, Devon, said she contracted Covid at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
After being off sick for six months, she lost her job as a partner in a GP practice.
She said she had not felt safe to go back to work as a GP because she struggled with her memory.
She said: "I am really worried I will miss something key or I will forget to write something down. I don't trust myself to do a good job and I expect myself to do a good job for my patients."
She said she wanted the government to carry out more research into the condition.
In Cornwall, the Kernow Local Medical Committee - which represents Cornish general practice - said its pastoral service had supported "a handful of GPs where long Covid seemed to be either a major contributor or causal factor responsible for their current work or personal problems".
It added: "We are also aware of a small number of patients working in the wider local health service for whom the condition has been career ending.
"In terms of the general population, we suspect that the majority of more susceptible individuals have now been challenged by the Covid virus: this, the vaccine, herd immunity, and the lack of testing have contributed to a slowing down of referrals and hopefully of serious new cases."
A government spokesperson said: "We are committed to ensuring there are quality services across the country for people suffering with long Covid, which we know can have a debilitating impact on people's physical and mental health.
"NHS England has rolled out a range of support for staff with long Covid and other conditions.
"No single treatment currently exists for the condition, which is why we are funding research into it.
"We are also joining up health and employment support so people with long term conditions can stay in work and get back into work."
Follow BBC Cornwall on X, Facebook and Instagram. Follow BBC Devon on X, Facebook and Instagram. Send your story ideas to spotlight@bbc.co.uk.
Almost one in 10 may have long Covid, research finds
Health staff start court fight over long Covid
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
USA Today
2 hours ago
- USA Today
'I refuse to give up': Michigan researchers, health officials grapple with funding cuts
'I refuse to give up': Michigan researchers, health officials grapple with funding cuts Show Caption Hide Caption Video: MSU breast cancer researcher Jamie Bernard talks about funding uncertainty MSU breast cancer researcher Jamie Bernard talks about federal funding uncertainty on Thursday, May 8, 2025, at her lab in East Lansing. Michigan public health officers say they've had to cut services and lay off workers after the Trump administration slashed funding, affecting their ability to work to stop the spread of disease. Scientists from the University of Michigan and Michigan State University say federal cuts to their research could halt development for new cancer treatments and eviscerate the scientific workforce. Using words like "devastating," "heartbreaking," and "shortsighted," Michigan public health leaders and researchers at the state's largest universities described the effects of President Donald Trump's efforts to slash federal government spending — through executive orders, cuts to federal grants, and stop work orders — and the wide-reaching fallout. Some local health departments have laid off workers and cut back on the services they can provide at regional laboratories and at community and in-school health clinics, and have seen disruptions in their ability to stop the spread of infectious disease, said Norm Hess, executive director of the Michigan Association for Local Public Health. When the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services revoked $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related grants in late March, the effects were felt across Michigan in ways that might not have been anticipated, he said. 'While everyone agrees the emergency response phase of COVID-19 is over, the funding streams created for pandemic response have been supporting laboratories monitoring other diseases around the state, from legionella to tuberculosis to measles, as well as water quality inspections and other sampling work,' Hess said. 'Federal leaders rescinded those grants, clearly thinking it was a responsible way to recover money that was being misspent. Instead, it's a great example of unintended consequences. Everyone agrees government should spend public dollars efficiently and effectively, but it appears they did not check to see what they were actually eliminating when cutting grants that had 'COVID' on the label.' Although Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel has joined other states in challenging many of the Trump administration's cuts to federal public health and university research funding, including the $11.4 billion in COVID-19-related grants, Hess said it's too risky for local health departments to count on money that may or may not be awarded to them in the end. "You can't turn it off, and then if money comes, turn it back on," he said. Cuts hit research on the science of aging When he took office, Trump pledged to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse in federal spending, and "make America healthy again" by shifting priorities of the nation's top health agencies and taking aim at research and programs that focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. But medical researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Michigan say his administration's abrupt cuts to funding for scientific studies, clinical trials and training programs have all but gutted their life's work and could halt the development of new treatments for diseases like cancer as well as eviscerate the future scientific workforce. University of Michigan psychology professor Toni Antonucci lost the $13 million federal grant that supported her research on health disparities among aging Americans. It focused on minority populations, including African Americans, and comes at a moment in history when the U.S. population is older than it ever has been and is growing increasingly diverse. "I have never thought that politics should be involved in research, and, unfortunately, this is clearly the case here," said Antonucci, who has worked at U-M since the 1970s. "We were focusing on our most vulnerable populations, and I think that's the reason that the money was ... rescinded. "It shows a kind of shortsightedness and, in a way, vindictiveness. ... My focus was on ... how can the social relations that people have improve their health? What kinds of relationships are positive for people or negative for people? How do we increase the positive, and reduce the negative? "What are the kinds of things that universally predict better health, longer longevity? ... The point is, if you know what's influencing different groups, it gives you some insight on how to intervene both with that group and with other groups." Now, she said, that data will be lost. "If a government has policies that they want to enact, regardless of the data, then this is what you do," Antonucci said. "You just make sure there are no data. But just because you don't collect the data, that doesn't mean the association isn't still there." U-M professor: Slashed grants suggest 'you just don't matter' Gary Harper, a U-M professor of health behavior and health equity, learned in late March that his nearly $1.15 million five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health had been rescinded. "It's devastating," said Harper. "I am an openly gay man, and have been involved in activism, research, clinical work, and policy work in the HIV field for 40 years, starting out in 1985 as an old-time activist at a time when we were burying our friends every week. ... This is the first time in the history of my academic career that I've been without federal research or training funds." Harper is co-director of the SOAR at U-M, which stands for Student Opportunities for AIDS/HIV Research. It's a two-year intensive mentoring program that provides HIV-related research opportunities to undergraduate students, propelling them toward graduate school, and, eventually, the HIV research workforce. Many of those students are LGBTQ+ themselves, have disabilities, or come from low-income backgrounds, he said, but Harper noted that the program is open to anyone. "I'm a strong believer that we need to be making sure that we mentor researchers who reflect the communities that are most impacted," Harper said. More: Federal research cuts would rock Michigan economy, halt clinical trials, those affected say More: Trump's budget cuts could cost Michigan universities more than $200 million Discovering that the NIH canceled SOAR's grant funding "ripped me apart," Harper said. "We have one more cohort to get through their senior year." He said he won't let the Trump administration win and cancel the program before they graduate. "Basically, what they're saying is, 'We don't want to spend any money on you because you just don't matter,' " Harper said. " 'Your life has no value.' ... Well, I refuse to give up on them." Harper and SOAR's co-director are scrambling together the money themselves to pay for the final year of the program. Slowly, he said, that is coming together, but his other work through the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network (ATN) for HIV/AIDS Intervention has also been targeted by the federal cuts. A study on transgender youths was canceled, he said, and funding for the leadership group that oversees equity and inclusion in all ATN studies also was eliminated. He also lost grant funding to study gay and bisexual men in Kenya living with HIV. Still, he said, "I'm not going to let this get me down. "I try and show power and strength and resilience to the students, to give them hope that this, too, shall pass. This is a moment in time, but this is not your entire life. ... Your lives do matter. You are special and you are perfect, just the way you are." Breast cancer prevention studies in limbo The Trump administration isn't taking aim solely at research that fits its definition of DEI, said Jamie Bernard, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Michigan State University. "What I don't really think is being well communicated is that cancer research is also being threatened," said Bernard, who began studying interventions to prevent breast cancer in 2016, when her mother, Pamela O'Brien, was diagnosed with the disease at 61 years old. "This is something that Democrats and Republicans have always supported. In fact, we've come so far in the treatment of breast cancer due to federal funding, we diagnose women earlier. There's lots of options for treatment, and really, this research has saved a lot of lives and brought health care costs down." Her work is now focused on the environmental and lifestyle factors that can increase a woman's risk of getting aggressive breast cancers. "Not all breast cancers are curable, so that's what I really set off to focus on," she said, explaining that her work involves understanding how to kill cancer cells that are resistant to treatment and discovering new drug therapies. Earlier this year, she applied to renew a $2.07 million federal grant funded by the National Institutes of Health along with a new, $2.79 million grant, but both have been held up for months in a cloud of uncertainty. The initial reviews of her grants were postponed but eventually got through the first stage of the process; they now await the second step of review. There remain no guarantees. "How are they going to choose what they fund?" she said. "I don't know what's going to happen, really. So, we are in a time of uncertainty. Grant funding has always been uncertain. It's always been competitive, but there's always been a process and an infrastructure that researchers have relied on." Bernard runs a research lab at MSU, where a team of scientists are working to 'stop breast cancer from ever starting in the first place or prevent it so much that you've delayed it and you die of some other natural cause before you have to deal with cancer," she said. "I am in a place where I don't know if I should be accepting students in the fall. What's my next move? Am I still allowed to study what I've been studying? So it's a confusing time, a frustrating time, a time of high anxiety in our department of pharmacology and toxicology.' Bernard said the NIH canceled a grant for a graduate student from Puerto Rico who is Hispanic, and had applied through a mechanism that provided funding for predoctoral students who are disabled, identify as Black, Hispanic, American Indian or Alaska Native, or who are from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. "Just simply because she was a minority, the grant mechanism that she applied with, they withdrew it," Bernard said. "The white woman in my lab, her grant is going to be reviewed. ... It's so awful." The work they're doing, she said, "really should be bipartisan, nonpartisan — not even partisan. It's freaking cancer research." Ph.D. student reexamines future in scientific research The political climate is chasing Alex Chapman, a Ph.D. student at MSU who is studying migraines and pain, away from a career in academia. Chapman, 24, who is originally from Richmond, Virginia, secured a federal grant studying a neuropeptide that's upregulated in people with migraines, before Trump took office in January. Many of her friends and colleagues haven't been so lucky. "Science is being so vilified that I'm considering careers in other places or different avenues because it's just hard to see a future in a place that doesn't value science at all," she said. "It's heartbreaking. ... My career options are kind of dwindling, and the more time that passes, the more fellowships and different opportunities just keep becoming defunded," Chapman said, noting that a fellowship she was eyeing through the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has been axed. She considered shifting toward public policy work, helping government leaders understand "why we should fund pain research," but then she attended a symposium and heard a woman who works in public policy speak about the cuts there, too. "She was like, 'This is a great fellowship. It's been defunded. This was an awesome fellowship. It's been defunded,' " Chapman said. When entrepreneur Elon Musk, who headed the new Department of Government Efficiency early in the Trump administration, criticized the use of federal dollars on scientific studies of legumes and aggression in hamsters, Chapman said, it showed that he couldn't see the full impact of the work. "If you just simplify it like that, maybe it does seem silly, but you're looking at the small picture," she said. "The point of research is to zoom out and look at the bigger picture. When you understand the best process of planting beans or why certain strains of corn are more susceptible to different fungi, you help people more effectively and efficiently plant food. This will help us in the face of climate change. "If you understand why a hamster is aggressive after ingesting a certain substance, you understand the role of that substance and how it could potentially affect humans." That small-picture view — and the cuts made because of it — could have generational impacts on the United States and the world, Chapman said. "This isn't just shutting down one study that focuses on hamsters fighting," she said. "It's preventing a new generation of scientists from coming into the (field), which is going to stunt our growth as a nation, which is going to prevent new ideas from happening, which is going to lead to ... horrible damage that would take years, if not decades, to recover. "People are afraid to come out and criticize this because of the way the government has treated them, especially foreign students. When it gets to the point where the government can strike fear in your heart if you speak out against them, especially about something regarding science, it's a very scary place to be." Local public health departments rattled, services cut Nick Derusha, the director and health officer of the LMAS District Health Department, which also includes Luce and Mackinac counties, said his part of the eastern Upper Peninsula has been rattled by a Trump administration stop-work order that means there's no money to run clinics that provide medicine like methadone to help people wean off opioid drugs and reduce the risk of overdose deaths in Alger and Schoolcraft counties. "We take a really holistic approach to that program," Derusha said. "We're not just providing medication-assisted treatment. We have peer recovery coaches. We have community health workers. We have a lot of staff that are there to support them in many other ways, not just the medication. "When funding is abruptly eliminated like that, we can't just drop people off the caseload. We needed to find a way for them to be able to continue to receive services or some type of off-ramp. We worked with the local hospital, and we agreed for three more months, which is kind of nearing the end here, to continue to provide those services, absent the funding. But the long-term ability of us to do that is not likely." In addition, Derusha said the LMAS department lost $512,000 a year to pay for a courier system for its laboratory services. Because the district is so sprawling — it covers four U.P. counties — when test samples need to be shipped to the regional lab in Luce County, ordinary mail often doesn't get them delivered quickly enough. Without the courier system, it means slower results for important public health testing, he said, which could delay treatments and lead to poorer outcomes. The LMAS District Health Department isn't alone. The Mid-Michigan Health Department, which includes Clinton, Gratiot and Montcalm counties, announced in April it will no longer investigate or treat latent tuberculosis infections because of "funding cuts and workforce limitations." Mental health services for school-age children are being cut, too, said Andrea Cole, president of the Ethel and James Flinn Foundation, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to improving the quality, scope, and delivery of mental health services in Michigan. A $1 billion grant was terminated through the Department of Education in late April to pay for in-school social workers, counselors and other mental health professionals — even though 70% of children who receive mental health services get them through their schools, she said. "A lot of the federal cuts were to the most vulnerable and underserved populations," Cole said. "Schools are faced with the possibility of laying off those people that they hired under that grant if they don't have funding to continue it." And the students will be left without that critical mental health support when "they need it more than ever," Cole said. Hess said all of these cuts, along with proposed legislation — the Big, Beautiful Bill Act, which has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and now is under consideration in the U.S. Senate — that would slash Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits, and a state Senate budget proposal that also seeks to trim funding even more, public health in Michigan could dramatically change. More: Whitmer: Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' could cost Michigan $900 million a year for food stamps More: 700,000 Michigan residents could lose health insurance under Medicaid cuts, report shows "We don't want to give the impression that the sky is falling, and that public health is going to pack up and go home," Hess said. "We've been here for 100 years, and we've seen ups and downs over the years. Health officers are used to kind of making things work, but this is sort of a unique situation. "Community residents are really going to feel this if all of these things that we are watching come to fruition. Public health will not look the same in their communities, in most places." Contact Kristen Shamus: kshamus@ Subscribe to the Detroit Free Press.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Weight-loss jabs may need to be taken for life, experts warn
Weight-loss jabs may have to be used for many years if the long-term benefits to patients and the NHS are to be realised, experts have said. The drugs are sold under brand names like Mounjaro and Wegovy and work by reducing food cravings. Obese patients can currently be prescribed the jabs on the NHS after being referred to specialist weight loss clinics, which are usually located in hospitals. Hundreds of thousands of people also access the medication privately at pharmacies. There have been warnings about buying potentially unsafe jabs online from unregulated retailers and potentially missing out on wraparound support. Experts said the jabs should not be seen as the first option in weight loss and should be used in conjunction with lifestyle changes, such as eating more healthily and increasing exercise. Professor Graham Easton, a GP who has been using weight loss jabs himself, said: 'I think it's a major issue about the proper funding and resourcing of not only the GPs in the surgeries but also the wraparound care we talked about. 'I think the other issue is that so far, to my knowledge, the NHS and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence have talked about this being something you take for two years, and that's probably related to data from research studies. 'But as we discussed, this is likely to be a lifelong commitment if it is going to be worthwhile to the NHS. 'There's no point in most people taking it for a couple of years and then have the weight bouncing back. 'You can argue possibly you're about to prepare for surgery or something, but in most cases it doesn't make any sense. 'Then I think there's a big issue around access. Most obesity occurs in poorer populations as wealthier populations tend to not be so affected. 'There's a massive sort of socio-economic inequality and there is a worry about this driving that inequality even further. 'Unless the NHS makes sure that these are available across the board equally, I think that's a major risk.' Prof Easton said recent studies had shown people who stopped taking the drugs had put the weight they lost back on within around a year. 'That's often true of any diet, people would say, and that's certainly my experience of having wrestled with my weight in diets over the years,' he said. 'All I would say that I found interesting from that review was that they were suggesting perhaps that weight returns even quicker after having been on GLP-1 drugs. 'Then speculating, because there was no way of knowing from that review, that perhaps it's because people are not changing the behaviours we've been talking about like exercise and other lifestyle changes, just relying on the drugs. 'When you stop them, of course, you're going to put weight back on. The switch is turned back off, or whatever it was. 'I mean very similar to, for example, statins or anti-hypertensive blood pressure medications, if you want lifelong effects, you have to keep on them lifelong.' Prof Easton was speaking at an event at the Cheltenham Science Festival discussing the growing use of weight loss drugs with neurophysiologist Dr Simon Cork and consultant endocrinologist and obesity expert Dr Tony Goldstone. Dr Cork said the jabs have an important role to play in losing weight but are part of wider changes to diet and lifestyle. 'I think we have to understand that diet is always limited. People will tend to lose on average around 5% of their body weight on a diet,' he said. 'But you're hungry, you're miserable, you're tired, your wife hates you because you're so grumpy, you're not going to continue with that. 'But we should absolutely all be looking at our diet and all changing our diet, and doing something.' Dr Goldstone said weight loss drugs had been used in the treatment of diabetes for over a decade and had benefits of reducing the risk of developing other conditions. 'We're now in the third and fourth generation of these drugs, but the first generation of these drugs we've been using for 15 years for diabetes,' he said. 'There is nothing of concern that has emerged. In fact, all we're seeing are benefits. I'm not too worried about longer term side effects coming out. 'There is no real biological reason why there should be dangerous side-effects in the way that we know these drugs work. 'The benefits of the weight loss improvement in the diabetes are actually by themselves helping health and preventing other diseases, like cancer, heart attacks, renal failure, and potentially even reducing the risk of Alzheimer's disease. 'All those benefits, even if there was something that we hadn't really thought of that emerged down the line, I suspect that the harm of that is outweighed by the potential benefits of weight loss improvement in diabetes control.' Dr Cork said no drug is without side-effects and previous weight loss medications had failed because of them. 'There are side-effects, there are some concerning side-effects that tend to be very rare, but then you can monitor for those side-effects,' he said. 'As long as you're getting the correct care, as long as your GP is aware that you're taking them, then those should be identified. 'If you do find those side-effects, you can stop taking the drug.'
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
'Nurses emailed us praising our hand cream — it was rocket fuel for us'
Jonny and Antonia Philp have already endured enough personal and business challenges to last a career since co-founding Nursem, their range of hand and bodycare products, in 2012. The husband and wife team have claimed universal credit and turned down a Dragons' Den offer, while Jonny has overcome a brain tumour. It has since left him to live by the mantra of 'look after yourself, your health and have fun'. From turning over around £50,000 in their early years, Nursem hit public awareness in 2019 and now anticipate sales of £2.7m this year, with aims of growing their word-of-mouth business tenfold. Read More: How Caroline's Circuits became a midlife fitness empire The company launched in response to a problem encountered by Jonny's wife Antonia as an NHS paediatric nurse, working on intensive care wards and washing her hands between 50 and 100 times daily. After six months, her hands started to crack and bleed with the demands of work. The Philps realised she wasn't the only one, with nearly 90% of the nursing community suffering similar issue, despite trying a raft of hand creams. 'Hand cream sounds like an incredibly simple solution, probably overly simple, but sometimes the best solutions are the simplest because people know how to adopt and use them properly,' says Jonny. Originally called Yes Nurse – 'It was like a Carry On film,' admits Jonny – he paid himself £500 for the first five years alongside Antonia's salary. 'Until children,' he adds. 'That's when things become a lot more real.' He describes the feeling of juggling jobcentre meetings as the co-founders 'tried to survive for six months until we could launch into Boots in time". 'I think the lady looked at me and thought, 'this guy's on another planet'," he adds. "This is not the usual person she would expect to be interviewing. But I'm enormously grateful because, without it, there's no way we could have paid for nursery in those first months.' Read More: 'Why we set up a sustainable mobile operator to save people money' Back at the day job, he says that emails from nurses a decade ago were like 'rocket fuel' for a fledgling business. 'Nurses would say that it's the first time in 25 years that their hands weren't painful at work. Messages like that were like a shot in the arm and kept us going," says Jonny. Newcastle-based Nursem recorded sales of £142,000 (a net loss of £18,000) in their first year before a rebrand and relaunch in 2019 and COVID saw the company grow from a run rate of £150,000 per annum to £2.5m in 18 months. In 2020, Nursem's Caring hand cream was featured on ITV's This Morning. A product was sold every 36 seconds for several weeks while Boots also experienced empty shelves for a period. The publicity saw increased awareness of the company's 'Nursem Promise' where, for every product sold, they donate a month's worth to an NHS nurse or midwife. In 2021, the duo also appeared on Dragons' Den and received offers from all five before later rejecting a stake. This all pales into significance to January 2016 when Jonny was told by a consultant that he had an acoustic neuroma, a brain tumour on the left-hand side of his head. The couple had only been married three months. 'I lived on £500 a month, had enough money to fill the car up and buy some groceries. I was quite happy,' he admits. Read More: Meet the company that finds 'must-haves' to make everyday life easier 'It made me realise that all the dreams you have about building a business were just dreams up until that point. I was going to have to stick my head above the parapet.' Every year, Jonny paused for reflection when undergoing an MRI scan. The tumour was later removed in 2022 and three months of recovery followed. 'It took us 18 months of graft to get us back on track,' he adds. Nursem, says Jonny, is still largely a kitchen table, remote-first business, which employs 13 staff. The business is now driving demand from chefs, florists, mechanics and hairdressers. 'It is the shift towards people who are looking for something that's incredibly effective and cracking on with the rest of the day,' adds Jonny. 'It's the same for nurses in that you can't sit around for 10 minutes waiting for your hand cream to dry when it's a busy day.' A specialist transplant liaison nurse, Antonia has now joined the business full-time but will still be a registered nurse. 'We've got three kids and ambitions to grow 10x, but this means we can look after each other and be more present,' adds Jonny. The Nursem Promise If we were going to move the brand into retail on a bigger scale, how do we keep our heart and soul in the nursing community? That's when we realised rather than selling it to nurses, we should be providing it for free to deliver the biggest impact. For some nurses it can be absolutely debilitating and painful while at work. Not all hospitals provide access to moisturisers for staff so we decided to try and tackle it ourselves as a brand. We hear every single day from healthcare professionals how much it helps them. How to be a start-up success It's very easy to get distracted and move into other categories. The way we see the future is to continue to look after hands and become incredibly well known for doing one thing well. My key advice to other budding start-ups would be that if you're going to invest your time and energy, make sure you're tackling something that is a genuine issue that people have and that it affects enough people as well. Obsess over whatever the solution is that you're looking to launch, whether it's a physical product or a service. Think about all the key hurdles to get past and be absolutely brutally honest with yourself and actually work back from that goal. It will make life 10 times easier. Read more: Meet the 'jokers from London' who sold 100,000 blocks of butter in first 10 weeks 'My sofa took six months to arrive — so I built a £20m business' 'I paid myself £4 an hour to get my Rollr deodorant off the ground'
