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.”
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Dr Katie Sanderson, committee member of DAUK and junior doctor working in London spoke out on the care of COVID patients during the second wave.

“I found it much scarier this time. We are much better at looking after these patients. I think we know how to treat them much better. The volume of people turning up who are really unwell is just unremitting and the concern is how are we going to manage over the next few weeks – looking after people well takes time.”

“There’s a finite number of staff available. And so I suppose every new admission just means less time for everybody else.”

“So what we’re facing at the moment is we’re facing immediate, short, medium and long term problems in terms of health.”

“Our immediate problem has been demonstrated by the mayor’s announcement today as the cases of coronavirus rise in hospital. The short term issue is getting vaccines sorted. Medium term, we have a large amount of planned care. There are people who are unwell with non-covid issues, who are sat at home, who are not having their operations and not having their planned care. They will need to be treated in addition to people who will continue to develop other conditions.”

“Longer term, we will have ever increasing waiting lists, we have mental health issues already stacking up. And these are problems that are also going to affect the NHS. So we need strategies to deal with this.”

The article continues: “The head of the Doctor’s Association fears history will repeat itself and England will see a second coronavirus surge due to the lack of available coronavirus tests.”

Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden is the Chair of the UK Doctor’s Association and was speaking to Eddie Mair amid the news that no tests are available in England’s top 10 hotspots, which was exclusively revealed by LBC.

She told Eddie that “it’s a real worry” of British doctors that we may see a second peak of coronavirus imminently as a result of the lack of testing available, which feels like a déjà vu for people working in healthcare.

“We were in exactly the same position in the middle of February, early March when we couldn’t access tests.”

Dr Batt-Rawden went on to point out “we’ve had many months to learn from those mistakes and here we are with cases increasing.”

Sharing her heartfelt personal experiences of frontline working in Emergency Medicine and Intensive Care Sammy spoke of the toll this has had on her life. To get to the root of the problem she asked the tough questions that many doctors want answered by our medical establishment.

The half an hour episode as part of the My Name Is series included raw and candid interviews with hard hitting questions to Charlie Massey, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council, Saffron Cordery, Deputy Chief Executive of NHS Providers, Dr Taj Hassan, President of RCEM as well as Dr Jeeves Wij, Chair of UK JDC amongst others, holding these organisations to account for their decisions.

To give a balanced view of the frontline she speaks to a number of practicing junior doctors from a variety of specialties such as Emergency Medicine, Surgery and Intensive Care who give a first hand account of the pressures faced in the NHS currently.

The programme was be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 20:00 on Monday 10th June 2019. Catch up with the episode below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0005t3h