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.”

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NHS staff who argue the vaccine rollout has nothing to do with the lifting of lockdown restrictions “need to go on another educational course”, the Chair of the Doctors’ Association has told LBC.

Dr Jenny Vaughan made the remark to LBC’s Shelagh Fogarty after the subject of anti-lockdown protesters gathering in central London this weekend came up during their exchange.

Shelagh said: “There were some people in that rally claiming to be NHS workers [and] nurses too afraid to speak up about fears about vaccines.

She then Dr Vaughan: “What do you say to any NHS colleagues who share those views [and] who go on those marches?”

Dr Vaughan told Shelagh: “The truth is that the reason that we have been able to cautiously emerge from lockdown is that the vaccine has predominantly been delivered to over 80s and is now coming down all the other age groups and that we haven’t got the pressure on the NHS beds that we had.

“If anyone is strongly trying to argue that that’s nothing to do with the [vaccine] and they are an NHS staff [member] then they need to go on another educational course. They really do.

“The vaccine has delivered. But, in addition to that, so have people observing the lockdown.

“And that’s why we must continue to be very cautious with easing the lockdown. We absolutely must observe the social distancing and all the rules.”

In response to Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s statement regarding his unlawful management of PPE during the pandemic: ‘I won’t apologise because to apologise would imply that I’d do something differently’ DAUK’s Dr Katie Sanderson spoke out:

This is a pandemic not an election

How are we going to learn from this if we can’t be honest about what happened? It’s grossly offensive to the families of healthcare workers who got COVID and died, and I think it should be retracted immediately. 

Can you imagine what it feels like if you are the son or daughter of a doctor who died after getting COVID at work to hear that?

Dr Katie Sanderson – LBC Radio

38% of doctors who should have had FFP3 masks were saying they didn’t have them
47% saying they did not have access to long sleeved gowns 
>20% didn’t have eye protection
>60% had not been fit tested, so even if they had an FFP3 mask, it may not be protecting them because it may not have fitted 

“Just getting up for my night shift that I’ve had to pick up because two of our colleagues have come down with COVID and so now there is a rota gap.”

“I caught COVID in the first wave and I followed all the COVID PPE guidelines, you know, all the PPE that I had couldn’t stop me from getting COVID. I felt really sad and scared for the people who were saying that they did not have PPE because it’s just such a terrible disease. It’s very scary.”

Dr Pushpo Hossain

“This is the story of the UK government’s desperate 12 billion pound scramble to kit out the NHS for COVID. And the tens of millions of items of PPE bought at taxpayers expense that now can’t be used as planned. It’s pretty devastating for those who work on the front line and know so much money is being wasted when it could have been invested in our frontline services.”

“None of this is normal in the NHS. At our trust, we have three times the level of ICU patients that we had at the same time last year. We have converted several floors of our hospital to intensive care. We have redeployed multiple members of staff consultants…people from all specialties have been redeployed in the roles that they don’t normally fulfil”

“There is an immediate, short, medium and long term consequence that needs to be looked at. The immediate term consequence is our ridiculously high numbers of coronavirus cases that’s going on at the moment. Our short term goal is vaccination to try and drive that down…and our long term is to deal with our ballooning waiting lists and our mental health crisis”.

He also went on to respond to comments made by a senior MP earlier this week:

“This is basically a crisis situation…I would hope that an elected member of parliament who has people dying in his constituency would help to acknowledge that””It is not an admission of defeat to accept that one was wrong in making comments in the past…that is something which is difficult to do in politics, but unfortunately it is necessary to do in health. Otherwise we don’t learn from our mistakes. And if we do not learn from our mistakes in a pandemic situation, people die.”

DAUK’s Dr Katie Sanderson, talked to BBC Today about what it was like in March compared to today. She talks about the more hopeful situation dealing with Covid patients now due to the increased knowledge on the ground compared to previously, but also highlights her fears for another spike in cases in January. She reiterates how important it is to be sensible, and how every death now feels preventable due to the ongoing roll out of the vaccine.”
#protectthefrontline

DAUK’s Dr Jenny Vaughan on LBC News discussing the government’s latest covid-19 plans.

“The message of Christmas is actually about love, and love can be demonstrated by staying at home and protecting your family and others.”

“We have had nearly 60,000 deaths. We have had hundreds of healthcare workers die from looking after people and being exposed to covid through their job, Please think about the healthcare workers.”

Doctors and nurses need protection from prosecution over Covid-19 treatment decisions made under the pressures of the pandemic.

Dr Jenny Vaughan discusses emergency legislation to protect medical staff from legal action when dealing with circumstances out of their control, as outlined in the letter sent to Matt Hancock, together with  the Medical Protection Society (MPS), the British Medical Association, the Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin and Medical Defence Shield.