GPs are being left to pick up the pieces in the wake of long COVID clinics shutting their doors and funding for the services drying up, the college of physicians is warning.

The Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP) said that despite a national parliamentary inquiry recommending clinics stay open in every state, funding has already been pulled and many have reduced capacity or closed completely.

This means much of the work of managing long COVID patients will fall to GPs, many of whom have limited referral options, said Dr Jennifer Mann, president of the RACP’s faculty of rehabilitation medicine.

“If GPs don’t have the specialty clinics or services available to them, there’s not even a point of contact to send that complex person through to for further management.”