Covid booster

Covid vaccine boosters are not being offered to NHS healthcare workers this winter. Dr Alison George, DAUK GP committee member, said it’s a policy that places staff and patients at unnecessary risk. “It shouldn’t take a petition to prick the collective consciences of NHS England, the Department for Health, and the UK Health Security Agency,” she said. “But here we are. “There is clear evidence Covid is still causing significant acute and chronic health problems. “We know protecting NHS staff reduces nosocomial infections and staff sickness.

NHS staff

“This improves patient outcomes and limits treatment, operation, and procedure cancellations. “But despite this, the government has chosen to tightly restrict access to free Covid vaccines, including excluding NHS staff. “This is such a short-sighted and irresponsible decision and can’t be justified on an individual or NHS level. “Buying a vaccine privately costs around £98, which is likely to put most staff off and demonstrates appalling profiteering by companies. “As winter pressures mount, totally predictably, we see Wes Streeting and health leaders so determined not to budge that they’d rather continue with this reckless policy and the avoidable harm it is resulting in, than promptly reverse it.

Petition support

“DAUK is in full support of this petition. We urge Mr Streeting to reconsider his decision as a matter of urgency.” Sign the petition calling for all NHS healthcare workers to be offered a free Covid booster vaccine this winter. All of our committee members are volunteers. They speak to the media and campaign on the issues facing doctors in their own time. Please support their work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

GP employment

He added: “Despite the headlines of 1,500 extra GPs in work, those jobs that (health secretary) Wes Streeting has announced are not substantive roles. “They’re not seeing patients in the same way I would see patients because they are in all sorts of roles all over practices.” He was commenting on Government plans for the NHS App to become the go-to method of communication for patients. The Government said it would avoid the need to send at least 50 million letters through the post. This would save an estimated £200 million across the system over the next three years, the Government said. Dr Taylor told LBC that, as a GP, he could see a lot of potential for the app.

NHS app

“The hope is to use the app to book appointments and do other things,” he said. “I’d love for our hospital colleagues to send prescriptions to local pharmacists. That would save me as a GP the most time. “One of the things I struggle with the most is the lack of a joined-up approach. “But the problem, as I alluded to, is not enough cake. Doctors are struggling to find work.” Listen to Dr Taylor’s interview in full. Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder or by becoming a member.

Writing a column for Metro online, Dr Welch, former co-chair of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), said its staff was the health service’s most-valuable resource.

But she said that after ‘years of disinvestment, poor workforce planning, rock bottom staff wellbeing and plummeting retention – we have a chronic workforce crisis’ as she put the NHS firmly on the election agenda.

Dr Welch was responding to an announcement by Wes Streeting that Labour planned to cut NHS waiting lists by asking staff to deliver  ‘40,000 more appointments a week through evening and weekend clinics’.

Staff pressures

She said: “In March 2024, there were the equivalent of 1,790 fewer fully qualified full-time GPs than there were in September 2015. In secondary care – as of December 2023 – there were 110,781 unfilled posts, which in itself piles the pressure on existing staff who are already doing their level best to stay afloat.

“With 7.54 million people now on waiting lists for treatment (3.23 million who have been waiting more than 18 weeks), and GPs delivering over 1.49 million appointments on average per day: NHS staff are already working to exhaustion.

“They are already doing the work of at least two people, covering unstaffed rotas, missing their weddings and time with their children. But let’s ask them to work more shall we?

“It seems our politicians are oblivious to the current experience of staff on the ground. While tackling waiting lists is a worthy goal – the idealism of these political promises may appeal to some voters, but these sound bites are not grounded in reality.”

Dr Welch, a GP and member of DAUK’s GP committee, reminded politicians that 1.5 million people work in the NHS in England.

Skilled NHS staff

“That is a lot of votes,” she said. “There are also a lot of skilled, knowledgeable professionals who have so much to offer our health service.

“Asking them to simply work harder, rather than recognising how difficult it already is to work within the NHS right now is not going to win an election, or solve this crisis. 

“Invest in the staff – pay them better, improve working conditions, eradicate box-ticking soul-crushing bureaucracy which takes time away from the actual job.”

Read Dr Welch’s column in full.

Dr Welch will be taking part in a briefing for prospective MPs on Wednesday 19 June to discuss the crisis in general practice and things that could be done to tackle it.

DAUK election briefing

The briefing, Why Can’t I See My GP? The Great British Paradox, is based on her book Why Can’t I See My GP?, a copy of which we sent to all 650 MPs in March.

Dr Welch will be joined in the briefing by colleagues from DAUK’s GP committee, including its chair Dr Lizzie Toberty, and members Dr Steve Taylor and Dr Sarah Jacques.

DAUK is asking people to invite the candidates standing in their constituency to attend the briefinf. Find out the candidates in your constituency at https://whocanivotefor.co.uk/

This election is vital to the future of the NHS.

Find out more about the briefing.

Become a DAUK member and support our work.

Dr Jenny Vaughan, chair of the grassroots lobbying Doctors’ Association UK, said: “Any extra funding for the NHS is clearly necessary given its current parlous state and the number of patients facing increasing uncertainty and suffering as a direct result.

Frontline staff are facing impossible demands on their departments and on their own lives to try to cope with this. But we would like to see an assurance that this is the start of something better and bigger for the NHS, not a scramble to buy the PM out of his current troubles.”

read the full article here

“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 Doctors’ Association UK are dismayed at the governments less than inflation uplift for NHS workers and call for “fair say on fair pay”.  

At a time when doctors have given their lives and livelihoods to this pandemic, with no 
clear end in sight, it is an insult that the Government sees a 3% uplift as fair remuneration. In support of member opinion, DAUK’s ‘Fair say for fair pay’ campaign demonstrated the extremes staff have been put through during the pandemic, risking their own lives, whilst the challenges to the NHS have never been greater. 

The government’s decision to exclude junior doctors, who make up more than 50% of doctors in the NHS, is callous in view of the large number of doctors in training who have worked tirelessly through the pandemic. Junior doctors, a term than encompasses all doctors from leaving university up until becoming a consultant, are at the forefront of the fight against COVID. Many have been redeployed from their area of expertise or training to work in COVID medical wards or in critical care. Not only has their training been disrupted but they have been expected to pick-up shifts and cover rota gaps due to the on-going understaffing.

The 3% offered does not come close to what staff deserve. Inflation this year is estimated at 3.7%, making the proposed rise a pay cut in real terms. 

We consulted with our members last night and the overwhelming majority of responders supported industrial action. We plan to hold an emergency meeting with members soon to formulate next steps and we request that the Government reconsider its position with immediate effect.

Dr Jenny Vaughan, Chair of DAUK: “Any improvement on the derisory 1% previously offered to NHS workers is welcomed, but 3% barely takes the edge off the erosion of doctors’ pay over two decades. Doctors in the NHS have suffered a 30% pay cut in real terms, and after inflation this “pay rise” will ultimately be a pay freeze. DAUK’s campaign ‘fair say for fair pay’ demonstrated the extremes staff have been put through during the pandemic – the effects of which are only starting to be realised. It is time to pay and we hope the BMA and the HCSA as well as allied health professional unions will join us in voicing our discontent – including taking industrial action.”

Dr Duranka Perera, junior doctor and DAUK Treasurer: “We are in an ongoing pandemic that has killed 128,000 people in the UK, including over a thousand colleagues. With staff shortages at critical mass and thousands more on the verge of burnout, no number of claps for the camera can change these cold, hard facts. The service and sacrifice of NHS workers over the past year is being treated with open contempt.

There is no time but now to pursue the most powerful form of resistance. This Government – one that saw fit to pay private Test and Trace consultants £7000 a day – must be held to account. Amidst the most testing era in NHS history, unions across all healthcare disciplines must come together to demand just compensation for the workers that put their lives on the line for their patients and their country. After over a decade of austerity and real terms pay cuts, a 15% pay increase is the bare minimum we at DAUK see as acceptable. If it requires industrial action to achieve this, then we wholeheartedly back that too.’

Neurosurgeon and DAUK co-vice chair Mr Dolin Bhagawati: “The figures put forward by the government show a breath taking level of wilful ignorance regarding the pressures that NHS staff have faced during the pandemic and will continue to face in the current wave of COVID-19 infections. With the NHS staring into an abyss of millions of patients on waiting lists, we need staff that are compensated appropriately for the skill sacrifice and commitment they have and continue to demonstrate. A Government that does not realise this is catastrophically out of touch. “

Nottingham GP Dr Shan Hussain: “GP Practices have delivered over 75% of Covid vaccinations whilst caring for 2 million patients with long covid, looking after rising numbers of patients on secondary care waiting lists, and continuing day to day GP work. All of us have worked incredibly hard without recognition, and for the pay rise to exclude more than half of practicing GPs shows how little the Government values Primary Care.”

GP Partner Dr Rosie Shire: “Since the start of the pandemic GP’s have been battling covid in the community and changing the way we work in response to the ever changing regulations. For the pay rise not to include all GPs shows how undervalued we are.”

Award comes on the 73rd anniversary of the NHS’s foundation and marks only the third occasion on which the George Cross has been awarded to a collective body, country or organisation, rather than an individual.

The Queen has awarded the George Cross to the NHS recognising all health service staff in all four nations of the UK. In a personal, handwritten message, the Queen said NHS staff have carried out their work “with courage, compassion and dedication” for more than 70 years.

In her message, on Windsor Castle-headed paper, the Queen wrote: “It is with great pleasure, on behalf of a grateful nation, that I award the George Cross to the National Health Services of the United Kingdom. This award recognises all NHS staff, past and present, across all disciplines and all four nations.

“Collectively, over more than seven decades, they have supported the people of our country with courage, compassion and dedication, demonstrating the highest standards of public service. You have the enduring thanks and heartfelt appreciation of us all.”

However, The Doctors’ Association said better pay and conditions would have been welcomed instead. A spokesperson for the lobbying and campaigning group told i: “This is a similar gesture to the Thursday night clapping, which acknowledges the part NHS staff have played in this pandemic. However what the NHS actually needs is not shiny medals, but appropriately paid staff, who feel able to go to work without fear of abuse, to work in an environment with adequate staffing and resources.”

Read the full article here.

“The fact that politicians stood on the doorsteps of No 10 clapping while treating NHS staff with such contempt has angered even the most mild-mannered of my colleagues.
And it is this deep, impassible feeling of betrayal which has made people feel they have no option but to leave. A mass exodus from the NHS is no longer a case of if, it’s a case of when.
Staff morale will probably never recover fully. But there is a small window of opportunity now that, if lost, will never be regained. If we don’t start caring about our staff now, there will be no one left to care for our patients.”

– Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, DAUK founder

Read the full article in The Guardian

London (CNN)Few would envy Britain’s embattled National Health Service (NHS) workers over the past year. One of the world’s worst Covid-19 tolls has meant grueling shifts, danger, and workplaces full of grief and trauma. But Charles Oti would swap places with them in a heartbeat. A microbiologist by training, Nigerian by birth, Oti has spent four years working for the NHS honing a specialism in infection control.Oti’s skills are in short supply and among the UK government’s highest priorities for recruitment. But instead of taking a position on the front line of the pandemic response, he has been prevented from working and threatened with deportation.

“I believe I have the skills to make a difference,” says Oti. “This has been so frustrating because I am being wasted.”The case represents a personal ordeal and a wider issue. At a time when Britain is heavily reliant on immigrants to staff its essential services, particularly in the NHS, many of these same workers are fighting for their right to remain in the country. 

Living in legal limbo 

Oti, 46, received a five-year residence permit when he arrived in the UK in 2013 with his partner, a European citizen.After a spell in the private sector, he took a job with the NHS in London in 2015 as a medical devices coordinator. His regular duties included contamination control and ensuring the safety of equipment such as X-ray machines and respirators.Better money was available in private enterprise but Oti says that public service suited him. He felt the job made more of a difference to the lives of patients and enjoyed the camaraderie within the NHS’s multinational workforce which was “like a family.” There, he says he formed close friendships that helped him adapt to a new country.

But Oti’s residence permit was revoked without his knowledge when his relationship ended, and after returning from a trip to Nigeria in 2017, he was detained at the border and ordered to leave Britain. Since then he has existed in a legal limbo. Several applications to remain have been denied. Oti was allowed to continue working until 2019, when the Home Office informed the NHS that his status was insecure and he was suspended without pay. “They tell you to stop working and it puts a person in a very difficult position,” says Oti. “You can’t afford to make a fresh application or to appeal if it fails. One can go destitute because of this, a lot of migrants do.”Oti has avoided this fate with help from his friends and new partner — a British citizen and NHS worker — who have supported him while he has been unable to work.

Tip of an iceberg

Oti’s case is far from unique, statistics show. An estimated 170,000 of the NHS workforce of 1.28 million are foreign nationals, many of whom have an insecure status. The Doctor’s Association UK (DAUK) group is campaigning for Indefinite Leave to Remain for all NHS workers and their families, writing an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson that notes his own recent reliance on the service. “Charles Oti’s case represents precisely the reason DAUK have campaigned for NHS workers and dependents to be granted immediate Indefinite Leave to Remain,” Vice-Chair Dr. Dolin Bhagawati told CNN. “It beggars belief that the Home Office is not playing its part in the national effort to combat a pandemic that still affects the country.”Migrant rights campaigners believe the Home Office’s “Hostile Environment” policies, launched in 2012, are to blame. Those policies, aimed at deterring illegal immigration, introduced more stringent and frequent checks on immigration status that increased the difficulty of accessing services and left migrants more vulnerable. In the most notorious case of the “Windrush” generation, legal arrivals from the Commonwealth were cut off from housing, healthcare and banking services, and in some cases deported. The government has since apologized, commissioned an independent review, and established a compensation mechanism.

“The Home Office has a long history of treating migrants with disdain and cruelty,” says Minnie Rahman of the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI). “The Windrush Lessons Learned review showed how deeply the Home Office needs fundamental and meaningful reform, but the Government has so far failed to act.”The government has introduced free visa extensions for around 3,000 health and care workers, which unions have criticized as it excludes thousands more. Oti’s solicitors are now pursuing a judicial review of the case, which they say is his last hope. A crowdfunding appeal for his legal fees has raised around £2,700 ($3,700).For Oti, the pandemic has highlighted the need for people to work across boundaries as our fates are invariably connected. “When you walk into a hospital, the consultant who sees you might be a migrant, and the nurse supporting the consultant could be a migrant,” he says. “When something goes wrong (like the pandemic) it can affect everybody.”

Read the article in full here

Samantha Batt-Rawden, president of the grassroots campaigning organisation the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK), told The BMJ that doctors continued to receive abuse despite “risking their lives since March 2020.” In a recent survey, DAUK’s members reported verbal and physical abuse including insults, racism, death threats, and violence. One respondent told the campaign, “Physical abuse is a regular part of being an emergency medicine doctor. I have been hit and bruised by many patients for a variety of reasons. All staff have a story to tell, and it’s rare that the patients ever have to face any consequences.”

“It is not enough simply to clap once a week for NHS staff,” as the public were doing in the first lockdown of 2020, says Batt-Rawden, DAUK president. “We have to create a protected workplace that doesn’t leave them at risk of abuse.”

Read the full article here: https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n739