Urgent, practical steps

Now DAUK is calling for urgent, practical steps to protect staff and patients. These include:

• FFP2 and FFP3 masks for frontline healthcare workers
• Free flu and Covid vaccinations for healthcare workers who want them
• Implementation of clean air standards (HEPA/Ventilation)

DAUK warned that without immediate steps, the toll on patients and staff will continue to mount. Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “The sickness levels in frontline doctors and healthcare workers mean we’re facing a state of emergency in our hospitals.

Black swan event

“Ministers will tell you this is a ‘black swan’ event, but it isn’t. “In July last year, the Covid-19 Inquiry handed the Government a blueprint to prevent this exact scenario. They chose not to act on it. “It is heartbreaking to stand on the frontline and watch history repeat itself less than two years after the Hallett Report. “We entered this winter with 98% bed occupancy, with no slack, no buffer and no action plan.

Flu season

“This is not only a bad flu season, it is the inevitable result of political negligence. “They had the recommendations. They ignored them. Our patients and colleagues in the NHS are paying the price.” NHS England figures show the current H3N2 “subclade K” flu wave has driven a 55% rise in flu admissions in a week. An average of 2,660 patients are hospitalised per day. Emergency departments are reporting extreme pressure as they are faced with rising infections alongside high rates of illness among healthcare workers.

NHS workforce

Dr Kneale said: “It’s infuriating to witness a preventable crisis unfold. “It’s a crisis that is placing intolerable strain on the NHS workforce and endangering vulnerable patients. “We need the Government to act now.” DAUK committee members are all volunteers. They campaign on the issues facing doctors in their own time. Please support their work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

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.

DAUK’s Chair Dr Jenny Vaughan interviewed on Sky News in March regarding the government’s handling of the pandemic. She highlights that the government should have acted sooner during the first wave and gives her summary of where we’ve been and where we’re possibly heading.

“I’m very worried that there’s a lot of blame shifting going on here and political posturing and point scoring, bottom line is that colleagues of mine have, across the country have given their lives on the front line to save as many lives as possible.”

“And what we should be doing now is to try and actually fix the issues that led to the avoidable deaths. “

Dr Jenny Vaughan