She explained that: “I have had abuse on social media, I am lucky, unlike my colleagues, this has not happened in person. But this is a small but vocal minority, and we so appreciate the vast majority of the public who support us and those staying at home.”

She went on to speak about the video which recently emerged of members of the public obstructing patient care based on misinformation, adding that “They put themselves at risk. They put the staff at risk. And ultimately, what we really care about as doctors; they put the patients at risk.”

In response to a senior Tory MP saying that figures are being manipulated to exaggerate the scale of Coronavirus, Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden spoke about her dismay, and challenged the MP to volunteer in her local ITU.

She explained that “It’s unknown how effective the vaccination is going to be with this delay of the second dose, and that’s really concerning.”

Watch the full clip here.

DAUK President Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden appeared on Good Morning Britain, warning that hospital capacity is becoming overwhelmed in the South East as Covid-19 cases continue to rise.

Intensive care units across the South East are full. We’ve created surge capacity despite that, turned wards into temporary ICUs. We’ve got ventilators and anaesthetic machines from theatres, which has meant we’ve had to cancel operations. And despite that, all our surge capacity is now full. We are talking about transferring patients out of the South East up to the North. Things are really, really, really bad.

Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden, DAUK president