• City St George's logo

Managing COVID-19 in Primary Care

Get practical advice and support around how to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic as a front-line healthcare professional.

29,321 enrolled on this course

Person writing on a laptop next to a stethoscope
  • Duration

    3 weeks
  • Weekly study

    2 hours
  • Accreditation

    AvailableMore info
The CPD Certification Service

This course has been certified by the CPD Certification Service as conforming to continuing professional development principles. Find out more.

Access up-to-date advice to keep your primary care practice running safely

COVID-19 is having unprecedented effects on healthcare systems around the world. As a healthcare professional, it’s important to know how to respond safely and effectively.

On this course, led by experts at St George’s University of London, you’ll explore the epidemiology, clinical symptoms and signs, and current management of COVID-19 and follow the evolving situation in the UK.

You’ll learn how to complete a safe assessment of suspected COVID-19 cases and discover the best protocol to protect yourself and others.

Download video: standard

Skip to 0 minutes and 7 seconds Hello, I’m Dr. Mohammad Razai from St. George’s, University of London. In a few short weeks, a localised outbreak of a respiratory illness in a Chinese city became a pandemic that has affected almost every country, society, and aspect of modern life. We are heading towards an uncertain and challenging future which requires preparedness, knowledge, as well as commitment to sharing and learning from experts and each other. With a huge amount of information coming in every day, with news and advice about COVID-19, it can be difficult to make sense of the information relevant for front line clinical practice. For this course, we will take participants through the most useful and up-to-date research and guidance.

Skip to 0 minutes and 53 seconds By the end of the programme, we are hopeful that participants will have received a concise, practical, and where possible, evidence-based approach to dealing with COVID-19 in primary care.

Syllabus

  • Week 1

    What you need to know about COVID-19

    • Welcome to Week one

      Introduce yourself to other participants and the course educators, and get an overview of the learning objectives and content to be covered in the first week.

    • Overview of COVID-19

      We will discuss how the outbreak emerged, was first detected and how it spread around the globe and became a pandemic.

    • The situation in the UK

      We will look at the current situation in the UK, introduce the clinical course of the disease and when to suspect COVID-19 infection in general practice.

    • Safe assessment of suspected cases in primary care

      Learn about primary care preparedness and explore the communication challenges due to COVID-19. We will focus on the remote assessment especially video consultations in general practice and discuss management of possible cases.

    • Infection prevention and control in primary care

      Learn how to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 infection in primary care. We will look at the handwashing technique, personal protective equipment, isolation procedure and environmental cleaning.

    • Summary of the week

      Reflect on week one's teaching, participate in the discussion, look at the frequently asked questions and complete the quiz.

  • Week 2

    What you need to do in relation to COVID-19

    • Welcome to Week Two

      Learn about this week's topics and reflect on last week's activities, in particular, the differences and similarities between your country and the UK's response to COVID-19.

    • Management of acute and post-acute COVID-19

      We will look at the management of patients with possible or confirmed COVID-19 infection on home isolation, including safety netting advice.

    • Social distancing

      Learn about social distancing advice for the vulnerable groups and how to support patients undergoing shielding.

    • Routine care during the pandemic

      We will discuss how to provide routine medical care for patients without COVID-19 during the pandemic.

    • COVID-19 Vaccine

      Here we look at what is the COVID vaccine is and explore some of the hesitancy around it and the adverse effects.

    • Summary of the week

      Reflect on week two's teaching, participate in the discussion, look at the frequently asked questions and complete the quiz.

  • Week 3

    Mitigating the psychological impact of COVID-19

    • Welcome to Week Three

      Learn about this week's topics and consider the personal impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

    • Psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

      We explore the psychological impact of the pandemic and how to manage patients with mental illness.

    • How to mitigate the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

      We will explore evidence-based strategies to manage the impact of social isolation on mental health and loneliness.

    • Staff wellbeing

      What are the risks to healthcare workers' physical and mental health due to COVID-19 and what we could do to support frontline staff? We will seek to answer these questions in this activity.

    • Ethnic disparities in the risks and outcomes of COVID-19

      Learn about the ethnic disparities in the COVID-19 outcome, including the effects of racism on health and how we might mitigate the impact of COVID.

    • Ethical and medico-legal issues

      We will explore the ethical and medico-legal implications of the novel coronavirus pandemic for primary care staff.

    • Summary of the week

      Reflect on week three's teaching, participate in the discussion and complete the quiz.

Who is this accredited by?

The CPD Certification Service
The CPD Certification Service:

The CPD Certification Service was established in 1996 and is the leading independent CPD accreditation institution operating across industry sectors to complement the CPD policies of professional and academic bodies.

Learning on this course

On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.

What will you achieve?

By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...

  • Improve your understanding of the coronavirus disease 2019 specifically to the situation in the UK
  • Identify procedures for prevention and control in primary care
  • Describe the correct management plans for patients on home isolation
  • Apply the necessary measures to keep your general practice running and routine care

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for front-line clinicians, healthcare workers and professionals who are dealing with the large volume of patients in the current COVID-19 pandemic within the UK primary care.

This course will also be relevant to healthcare practitioners around the globe, though the course will be based around guidance by UK public health bodies.

This course is part of a partnership between City St George’s, University of London and FutureLearn that is coming to an end. As a result, this course will retire on 24 August 2026.

Please note that the course content, data and materials are no longer being actively updated and may not reflect the most recent developments in this subject area.

We encourage you to enrol on course before the retirement date if you wish to take part.

Who will you learn with?

BSc BA MB BChir MRCGP MA
In-Practice Fellow in primary care at the Population Health Research Institute, St George's University of London

Pippa Oakeshott is a professor of general practice at the Population Health Research Insitute at St George's University of London. She is also an inner city GP.

Clinical Teaching Fellow in Public Health and a salaried GP. His academic interests in population health research include physical activity, medical technology and clinical education in primary care.

Dr. Lucia Magee currently works as an Academic Clinical Fellow in Population Health and a GP registrar in South-West London.

Dr Shamez Ladhani is a paediatric infectious diseases consultant at St. George's Hospital, London, and a consultant epidemiologist at Public Health England.

Bsc, Ma, MBCHB, FHEA
Academic GPST Doctor at St George's Hospital, London.

Who developed the course?

City St George's, University of London (formerly St George's)

City St George’s, University of London (formerly St George’s) School of Health and Medical Sciences is a leading provider of education in the fields of healthcare, medicine and psychology.

Learning on FutureLearn

Your learning, your rules

  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

Join a global classroom

  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn

Learner reviews

Learner reviews cannot be loaded due to your cookie settings. Please and refresh the page to view this content.

Get a taste of this course

Find out what this course is like by previewing some of the course steps before you join:

Join the conversation on social media

You can use the hashtag #FLcovid19 to talk about this course on social media.