The money lost to profiteering from the pandemic should be recovered for the NHS, the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) told national radio listeners.

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK spokesperson, said doctors were angry that people made excessive profit at a time of national emergency through the sale of PPE at inflated prices and that did not meet medical requirements.

Dr Taylor, a GP based in Manchester, was speaking to LBC News over the developing PPE scandal.

He said: “I can’t believe the mess we’re in. We’ve lost so much money as a result of all of this.

“I think back to 2020, when I was busy trying to rescue patients from Covid with very limited PPE at the time, the thought that anyone would actually make a profit out of it – it was a national emergency.”

He added: “Companies went out of the way to provide PPE and actually that PPE was inadequate, and that’s a big issue.

“As doctors, we’re all a bit angry.

“We’re angry at the amount of money that’s currently needed in the NHS and has been lost. This was the NHS budget fundamentally.”

Dr Taylor told LBC News listeners that following the ongoing Covid Inquiry changes should be made that prevent profiteering from national emergencies.

And he said that the money “lost” to profiteering should be recovered for the NHS.

“Fundamentally we haven’t got enough money to run the NHS at the moment and that money is in the hands of some very wealthy people,” he said.

“They made a profit at a time of emergency when we were all fighting for the health of the nation.

“It hasn’t disappeared. Most of the money that very wealthy people have isn’t suddenly spent – most of them struggle to spend it because they’ve got too much.”

Listen again to Dr Taylor talking to LBC News. The interview starts at around two hours and 32 minutes.

An Alliance of over 18 organisations, including DAUK, which has campaigned for over 16 months to give health workers the protection from Covid-19 they need in the workplace, welcomes new guidance which stipulates that Covid is spread by airborne transmission and that health workers are entitled to enhanced levels of protective equipment.

The Covid Airborne Protection Alliance (CAPA) and British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) issued the following statement this afternoon:

The NHS and the wider healthcare system are still in the grips of dealing with the usual winter pressures along with the significant impact of COVID-19, not only on staff sickness levels but also with the ongoing delivery of services to meet the needs of the populations we serve. As a result, the challenges of ensuring the safety and resilience of the NHS and wider workforce along with patient safety are greater than ever, not withstanding the planned reduction in Covid restrictions announced 19^th January.

For the last 16 months the Covid Airborne Protection Alliance (CAPA) has been campaigning to influence IPC Guidance to ensure that all healthcare workers can access the right level of respiratory protective equipment to protect them from COVID-19. 

We have worked with the British Medical Association (BMA), Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and British Occupational Hygiene Society (BOHS) to support consistency of messaging to government, other key stakeholders and our healthcare workforce.

This includes alerting system leaders of the need to meet their legal responsibilities as laid out in the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 etc for ensuring the safety of the healthcare workforce through the provision of appropriate respiratory protective equipment (RPE). 

We have evidence that over 30 NHS Trusts across the UK are now leading the way in how they assess workplace risk and provide staff with appropriate levels of RPE including FFP3. 

We are therefore pleased to see that, this week, the Government made important updates to two pieces of guidance which will help to keep healthcare workers, patients and the public safe. 

Dr Barry Jones, Chair of CAPA said:

“I’m delighted that the new IPC guidance makes it clear that healthcare workers can have access to enhanced levels of respiratory protective equipment without being restricted to the current list of aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) which is no longer relevant. 

“The IPC guidance however does not specify how COVID-19 is transmitted, placing risk assessment at the mercy of individual employers or managers views or assumptions on this key part of the risk assessment process. We are pleased the Cabinet Office guidance explicitly states that COVID-19 is spread by airborne transmission, close contact via droplets, and via surfaces. Airborne transmission is a very significant way that the virus circulates.”

“The Cabinet Office guidance is consistent with other government guidance such as that from the Department for Education (England), Coronavirus (COVID-19) and the use of face coverings in education settings (publishing.service.gov.uk) which  highlights that the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has advised that Omicron might show more airborne transmission.

Professor Kevin Bampton, CEO of BOHS added: 

“System leaders now need to mobilise their health and safety and IPC leads to ensure appropriate risk assessments are carried out and the right level of RPE is provided in a safe and effective manner. This includes ensuring that fit-testing for FFP3 is available, and reusuable FFP3 equivalent masks can also be accessed.”

DAUK Chair, Dr Jenny Vaughan, said: 

“For far too long, far too many of our colleagues have been left exposed unnecessarily to Covid because their PPE was simply inadequate. The public were put at more risk as a result. This new guidance, issued after months of work by the CAPA, draws the clear line: no one should be expected to work to save lives if putting their own at risk avoidably was part of the deal. Now it is agreed. This should never happen and this is how the risks, not lives, are cut.”

Dr Christine Peters, Consultant Microbiologist FreshAirNHS commented: 

“As SARsCOV 2 transmits by travelling in aerosols produced when breathing, speaking and talking it is crucial that healthcare workers are provided with the correct RPE to ensure protection for them and their patients. We are delighted to see a change in guidance that advocates for this in line with WHO and urge all employers to ensure rapid roll out of respiratory level protection for this airborne infection”

Notes to editors 

Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) is an organisation run by frontline doctors for frontline doctors. 

Their Communications Lead is Alan Taman:

press@dauk.org

07870 757309

The new guidance measures

The updated infection prevention control (IPC) guidance:

The Cabinet Office guidance:

Further details on routes of transmission of COVID-19, risk assessment and different types of RPE can be found on the RCN website

Covid Airborne Protection Alliance (CAPA) includes:

 ·      ARTP – Association for Respiratory Technology & Physiology·      BAPEN – British Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition·      BIASP – British & Irish Association of Stroke Physicians·      BDA – British Dietetic Association·      BSG – British Society of Gastroenterology·      CBS – Confederation of British Surgery ·      College of Paramedics Natasha.Weale@collegeofparamedics.co.uk·      CSP – Chartered Society of Physiotherapy·      FreshAir NHS·      GMB Union·      HCSA – Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association·      Medical Supply Drive UK·      NNNG – National Nurses Nutrition Group·      QNI – Queen’s Nursing Institute·      RCSLT – Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists·      Unite the Union·      DAUK- The Doctors Association·      Trident HS&E 

BOHS British Occupational Hygiene Society

Better safety and protection

Frontline doctors want the Government and/or the NHS to provide a physically safer working environment, with more air purifiers in hospitals, better ventilation, and FFP3 masks (which provide the highest level of respiratory protection) across all areas while Covid-19 rates are high in the general population.

Improve health and well-being

The grassroots lobbying organisation Doctors’ Association UK said the NHS should ensure staff have access to food and drink at all times. “If too busy for breaks, get a tea-lady (or man) to go round,” Dr Louise Hyde, a GP with the association, said.

“The NHS could provide emotionally safer workplaces by ensuring shifts had realistic arrangements for handovers and time for debriefing;, by tackling any culture of bullying or toxic HR culture; by ensuring all staff have protected holiday time, time off for weddings and funerals, and are not made responsible for making swaps or finding locums to replace them.

“Ultimately, treat health care workers as the valued, skilled professional workforce that they are, with human needs and lives which cannot be sacrificed indefinitely for their job.”

Visas for elderly relatives of overseas-born NHS staff

Over the last 12 months i has highlighted numerous cases of NHS staff – born overseas and now British citizens – forced to choose between their job and returning to their country of birth to look after ailing parents, as tighter immigrations rules reduced the chance of obtaining an adult dependent relative (ADR) visa to almost zero.

It is a ripple effect of th “hostile environment” policy introduced when Theresa May was Home Secretary.

With about 170,000 non-British NHS staff, the restrictive immigration rules are disproportionately affecting healthcare workers. The British Medical Association, along with other organisations such as the BAPIO (the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin) and APPNE (Association of Pakistani Physicians of Northern Europe), have campaigned for rules on ADR to be relaxed.

Just 70 ADR visas were issued by the Home Office last year – in contrast 2,325 ADR visas granted between April 2010 and March 2011.

Read the full article here

Dear …..,

I am concerned about the airborne spread of Covid in our work environment, especially now it is clear that the new Omicron variant is very easily transmitted through the air.

I would like to make you aware of the new updated guidance from the UK Health Security Agency, released on 21st December 2021. 

My interpretation of the guidance is that employers should make a full assessment of ventilation and air filtration in every clinical area. If adequate air quality cannot be assured, or for those who can’t keep 2m distance for patients, then PPE of a grade appropriate for airborne hazards should be provided. Local prevalence of respiratory pathogens must be taken into account within risk assessments. Currently there is a high risk that any patient or member of the public could be carrying Covid, regardless of their presenting symptoms, so airborne mitigation measures would be appropriate in all indoor spaces where patients or staff mix.

This would be consistent with the evidence that FFP3 masks reduce Covid infection in health care workers.

And with the evidence that air filters in clinical areas reduce airborne viral load.

These interventions are immediately necessary in order to fulfil legal obligations under HSE Health and Safety at Work legislation.

Financially, although some cost may be incurred in order to make these interventions, this would be more than compensated for by the savings in sick pay for staff infected at work and needing to self-isolate.

As we know, Covid is most infective just before, and around the time that symptoms develop. Daily lateral flow testing reduces the risk of someone unknowingly carrying Covid, but has a significant false-negative rate. By protecting our staff from infection, we will also be adding an extra layer of protection for patients, preventing them for getting hospital-acquired Covid.

Although not covered by this guidance, acting to reduce airborne viral load, and offering those patients who are able to wear them the option of more protective masks, would also reduce the risk to patients of hospital-acquired infection.

I would be grateful if you could implement the new guidance and evidence urgently to protect all staff and help us continue to provide excellent patient care in safety.

Yours sincerely

“We are seeing huge staff shortages. The question really on my mind, and I think on the minds of a lot of NHS staff, is what’s the plan here?

“How are we going to staff these beds and make sure people get the care they need?”

nhs staff
She added: “My worry for my patients is what if they get something that is not Covid related but still needs urgent treatment and the staff that are needed to treat them are off with Covid?”

Dr Lizzie Toberty

read the full article here

The NHS does not have enough medics to staff beds in “surge hubs” for Covid patients being set up at hospitals around England, a representative of health service managers has warned.

The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said that an “emergency staffing model” will be needed, with recently retired doctors and nurses and experienced volunteers called in if the additional capacity is needed.

And a member of the committee of the Doctors Association UK, neurologist Dr David Nicholl of University Hospital Birmingham, warned that many clinicians within the NHS are “really, really anxious” about the rising pressure on staffing within the service.

“The biggest threat is staffing at every level,” Dr Nicholl told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “Speaking to my colleagues in critical care, they tell me they have less staff than they had 12 months ago. 

“That, frankly, is because people are burned out from last winter. A lot of people are really, really anxious about what what’s going to happen next.”

Read the full article here

NHS staff who work directly with patients should have routine access to face masks that offer high protection because covid-19 infections threaten to overwhelm services, doctors’ leaders have said.

Three national organisations said that filtering facepiece respirators (FFP3s) should be made fully available because of the increased transmissibility of the omicron variant. The BMA, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, and the Doctors’ Association UK, concerned at rising hospital admissions and rates of staff sickness, cite growing evidence that airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is a major driver of infection.

They want better protection for all healthcare staff who work with or around patients who have covid-19, saying that the current guidance on FFP3 use and the NHS’s reliance on usual surgical masks leave staff at increased risk of infection.

Jenny Vaughan, who chairs the Doctors’ Association UK, said that staff were deeply concerned that the NHS could be overwhelmed by high numbers of patients needing beds in wards and critical care. “Our frontline workers must be protected,” she said.

Research published earlier this year showed that FFP3 masks for healthcare workers on covid-19 wards reduced hospital acquired SARS-CoV-2 infections.

The NHS is required to follow UK national guidance on infection and prevention control, which was updated by the UK Health Security Agency on 21 December. This says that an FFP3 respirator (or equivalent) must be used by staff when they care for patients with a suspected or confirmed infection that is spread wholly by the airborne route, and when performing aerosol generating procedures on a patient with a suspected or confirmed infection spread wholly or partly by the droplet or airborne route.

FFP3 masks can be used more widely when transmission risk remains unacceptably high, after local risk assessments that should include “evaluation of ventilation in the area, operational capacity, and local prevalence of infection/new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern.”

But doctors’ leaders said the guidance did not do enough to minimise the risks to all staff who may be exposed to the virus, nor did it guarantee an adequate supply of FFP3 masks.

In an open letter to the UK Health Security Agency, published last week, the Doctors’ Association UK said the distinction between normal patient care and “aerosol generating procedures” was “artificial” and that the latest guidance would confuse NHS trusts over how to fulfil their health and safety responsibilities.

The letter said, “We now know that breathing is sufficient to generate airborne coronavirus capable of infecting others who are breathing the same air. With omicron rates doubling roughly every two days we must treat every patient we see as being a potential carrier of covid. We believe it is necessary to provide FFP3 masks for all staff working indoors where exhaled air from patients is circulating.”

Read the full article here

Read the full article in Pulse

GPs have told Pulse of buying their own higher grade PPE to protect staff as the new Omicron Covid variant is sweeping over the country.

Current infection prevention and control (IPC) Government guidance recommends ‘face coverings or surgical masks (Type II or IIR) to prevent the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory infectious agents in health and care settings’.

Dr Lizzie Toberty, North East GP and Doctors Association GP lead, told Pulse: ‘Two years into the pandemic, we should definitely have better PPE…. And surely health and safety laws would say that there is a responsibility on the NHS to provide adequate steps to keep us safe. And I don’t think that that’s there at the moment.’

She said: ‘It shows a disdain for staff, that in the same week Boris Johnson sent out a letter thanking us, we’re not being provided with the basics to enable us to look after our own health and therefore look after our patients.’

She also said it should be done centrally ‘from a practical perspective’, as she struggled to know which FFP3 mask was the right one when looking for herself.