Dr Alison George, of the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) GP team, criticised the decision not to ‘protect staff health’.

She was responding to the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) guidance that the age at which people are offered an NHS Covid vaccine should rise from 75 to 80 in autumn 2027.

Reducing vaccination

Dr George said: “Reducing vaccination to such a small group gives the impression to the public that we do not need to worry about Covid any more and that it can only harm the very oldest and most vulnerable in society.

“This is not the case at all and will do nothing to encourage members of the public to protect themselves and those around them from a disease that is spread easily.

“From an NHS staff member perspective it just confirms that DHSC and NHSE leaders have zero interest in protecting staff health.”

Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, spoke to the BMJ about the guidance.

Vulnerable and marginalised

He said: “This issue with a raised age group again gives the wrong impression of the failure of the NHS to care for the vulnerable and marginalised.

“It also means some NHS staff will feel that their health doesn’t matter. This feels like cost cutting rather than genuine choice over health benefits and certainly affects staff at risk.

“As DAUK has said previously, it will backfire, with staff sickness and absences. This should be a choice for staff and older patients.”

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

A red weather warning is in place for southern England and Wales with temperatures climbing above 33C in some parts of the country.

Forecasters expect June records to be challenged or exceeded during the current heatwave.

Survey

We’re asking healthcare workers to complete our anonymous survey and to tell us what conditions are really like on the ground.

Tell us how hot your workplace has been during this week’s heatwave. Does your main clinical area have working air conditioning?  Is the heat affecting patient care, staffing, or your own wellbeing?

Would you support a legal maximum temperature for workplaces, including hospitals?

The survey should take two or three minutes to complete and is anonymous.

Heatwave

Your experiences will help us build a clearer picture of how the NHS is coping during this heatwave.

DAUK will write to the Department of Health with the findings.

Please take a few minutes to complete our survey and share it with colleagues: https://dauk.org/heatwave-survey-2026/

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

Dr Steve Taylor argued for a more independent, expert-led system to determine the country’s healthcare needs.

He was speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC radio during a discussion on the ongoing Covid Inquiry.

Covid Inquiry

The inquiry’s third report, which was published on Thursday, said that the NHS was on the brink of collapse during the pandemic. It said the health service only survived thanks to the ‘superhuman’ efforts of healthcare workers.

The Rt Hon. the Baroness Hallett DBE, the inquiry chair, said: “The UK entered the Covid-19 pandemic ill-prepared and with its healthcare systems in a parlous state, with severe workforce shortages, an ageing hospital estate, low numbers of hospital beds and high bed occupancy rates.

“It is unsurprising therefore that the impact on the healthcare systems of the four nations was devastating.”

Austerity

Commenting on the report, Dr Taylor said austerity and a decade of underinvestment in the NHS had left it woefully underprepared for the pandemic.

He said: “I don’t honestly think the NHS should be left in the hands of politicians.

“If we take Germany as an example, they have a council of 38 members that basically decides the health needs for the nation.

“It passes that information to the politicians and says you’ve got to raise the money.

Health policy

“Effectively, we’ve got the government deciding health policy rather than scientists and doctors and those that might know what’s needed.”

Listen to Dr Taylor’s interview on the DAUK Instagram.

Read the latest report from the Covid Inquiry.

CATA (Covid Airborne Transmission Alliance), of which DAUK is a member, is a core participant at the inquiry.

It issued a press release ahead of the publication of the Covid-19 Inquiry’s module 3 report.

We are a non-profit campaigning and lobbying organisation led by frontline doctors, for frontline doctors. We are volunteers and our collective aim is to give frontline workers a voice to be heard.

Please support our work by contributing to our crowd funder.

CATA, of which the Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) is a member, is a core participant in the inquiry.

A team of professionals charged with engaging with the Covid-19 Inquiry on behalf of tens of thousands of healthcare workers is asking whether taxpayers’ money has been misdirected in order to cover up for mistakes and bad decisions which were made in the early days of the pandemic and led to hundreds of avoidable deaths and untold suffering through Long Covid.

Mistakes which have not been corrected to this day.

The Covid-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA) is a group set up to create a collective voice for scientists, professionals and academics highlighting that the NHS refused, and continues to refuse, to accept that Covid-19 is transmitted through an airborne route.

The refusal of Government to acknowledge this fact has been the basis of the denial of protection for healthcare workers, including adequate ventilation of healthcare premises and sustainable and effective respiratory protective equipment (PPE).

Despite signing up to the WHO’s pandemic accord, the recently departed Minister responsible for Covid-19, Ashley Dalton MP, wrote to the group in 2025 to deny that Covid-19 was known to be transmitted by the airborne route.

Unlike the inquiry, which has cost millions of pounds on legal advice and collating evidence, CATA, which has no funding or resources, has managed through the use of freedom of information requests to identify that the Government and other bodies failed to disclose critical evidence which gave rise to incomplete and misleading accounts of critical decisions to the Inquiry.

“Either public bodies need to learn basic skills on how to search emails and electronic filing systems, or there has been a systematic attempt to rewrite life and death decisions by editing electronic exchanges and forgetting to share critical meeting notes with the Inquiry,” said Professor Kevin Bampton, chair of the Council for Work and Health.

“We can’t believe it is coincidental that the accounts given to the Inquiry and the evidence supporting them are missing critical messages and exchanges.”

CATA has undertaken a painstaking analysis of two decisive matters relating to the way in which Covid-19 is spread.

The first was the decision to declassify Covid-19 as a High Consequence Infectious Disease in March 2020, associated with an inappropriate downgrading of respiratory protection for most healthcare workers at the Covid front line.

The second relates to the conduct of the shadowy ‘Infection Prevention and Control Cell’ which dictated the implementation of safety for healthcare workers.

David Osborn, a health and safety professional who has worked for five years on a voluntary basis for CATA, explains what the Freedom of Information Requests reveal. “From the Module 3 hearings, we could see that there were inexplicable gaps in the evidence. In some cases, the Inquiry lawyers seemed to see them too. These were about crucial decisions.

“For example, the IPC Cell wasn’t set up to make scientific decisions, but to take advice from specialist bodies.

“However, experts from Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive gave clear advice which contradicted the views of the IPC Cell.

“We have evidence from correspondence that advice was ignored and removed from the record and not disclosed to the inquiry.

“These matters were not about minor issues, but whether thousands of healthcare workers should be provided with respiratory protection or not.

“The IPC Cell ignored and buried firm, competent advice from experts that they should have this protection and disregarded all representations from professional bodies such as CATA.

“The result was the UK having the second highest death rate of healthcare workers recorded in the world.”

CATA offered their extensive, detailed and evidenced reports to the Inquiry in July 2024 and in March 2026.

These prove conclusively that the inquiry has not been provided with complete evidence and that witnesses have not provided accurate and true accounts.

The inquiry has declined to receive this evidence.

Barry Jones, chair of CATA, said: “These are not academic issues, or something from history. We now understand that Covid-19 is a much more insidious disease than ‘flu and should not have been treated then or since in the same way.

“It causes long-term neurological damage, disability and is not stopped by vaccines. It is also costing the NHS millions.

“Infection Prevention and Control experts are supposed to keep us safe as patients in hospitals and to protect the people we rely upon to treat us.

“However, there is a blind spot in the NHS around any respiratory infection risks. We do not monitor the thousands of people who get infected with respiratory diseases when they are in hospital, nor make any attempt to prevent workers being infected.

“Meanwhile, COVID-19 is claiming around 50 deaths a week in England and Wales, one in every 200 people dying and many, if not most, people contract it in healthcare settings.

“We wrote to the Inquiry last year to point out that, despite promises, the Government had largely not implemented the recommendations from the Module 1 report in relation to preparedness for the pandemic.

“We hope the inquiry, despite having been misled by public bodies on material issues, will make meaningful recommendations and that the Government will take them seriously. However, we are not optimistic.”

The inquiry has cost £200m, half of which has been on public body evidence responses. CATA has a mixed view on whether it was worth it.

Ms Kamini Gadhok MBE, CATA vice chair, said: “The Inquiry has made excellent provision for allowing people to tell their stories of those dark days.

“Many have been harrowing and moving, shining a light on the personal suffering and sacrifice of many.

“However, state players who have given evidence have not convinced us that they have given the whole ‘story’ or indeed the whole truth.

“While the inquiry has been important to raise issues in the public consciousness, it seems to have done little to prick the public conscience.

“We despair when we read that the current NHS pandemic strategy (NHS England » Framework for managing the response to pandemic diseases) says ‘it will not be possible to halt the spread of a new pandemic virus, and it would be a waste of public health resources and capacity to attempt to do so’.

“Clearly, nothing has been learned by the NHS, but hopelessness.”

“While many (in Government) would like us to ‘move on’ and forget about the pandemic, healthcare workers are still living with the consequences of bad decisions made, whether that is through their own illness, living with their harrowing memories, or feeling mistrust when they go to work knowing that neither they nor their patients are protected.”

CATA will be publishing its assessment of the Inquiry’s Module 3 report once the Inquiry has published on 19 March.

CATA’s comprehensive evidence to the inquiry is to be found at the following links:

• Changes in the Management of Covid-19 (March 2020)
• Independent Investigation into the conduct of the IPC Cell
• Email from CATA to Baroness Hallett and response to CATA

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.

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.

Despite clear signs of a rapidly spreading global pandemic, which NHS staff watched with horror as the world locked down, the UK death toll was rising with no restrictions in place.

Contact tracing was abandoned in early March 2020, and large gatherings continued to take place up until the end of that same month.

The Covid Inquiry report reveals that if the government had introduced the first lockdown a week earlier, 23,000 people in England alone would not have died.

DAUK’s Protect the Frontline campaign, collaborating with Led by Donkeys called for adequate PPE for NHS staff.

PPE supply

Thousands of doctors signed up to our NHSPPE app giving daily reports on the PPE supply they had access to. We also raised our concerns that staff were being discouraged from speaking up about PPE in the press.

Dr Ellen Welch, DAUK co-chair and author of How the NHS coped with Covid-19, said: “Frontline staff were left woefully unprotected by a lack of PPE, and DAUK provided a voice for doctors to speak up about this when many felt gagged by their trusts.

“We all saw colleagues don homemade PPE to go to care for patients and two months later nearly 300 healthcare workers had died.

“DAUK welcomes the recommendations of the inquiry and hopes lessons have been learned around the key theme of preparedness.

“Future pandemics will come and it would be an insult to those who lost their lives, or continue to live with long Covid, if we did not.”

Covid Airborne Transmission Alliance

DAUK is a member of the Covid-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA), which gave testimony as part of the inquiry about how UK healthcare officials systemically denied overwhelming scientific evidence that Covid-19 was airborne.

Watch CATA chair Dr Barry Jones giving evidence here.

Dr David Nicholl, consultant neurologist and DAUK committee member, said: “I was thinking how much of a media hullabaloo there was, rightly, over the Iraq War when there were 179 UK deaths, yet how quickly there has been a concerted action to move along from the pandemic by the media.

“There were more than 200,000 deaths from Covid, including hundreds of healthcare workers. Some like Boris Johnson clearly don’t want to learn.”

Dr Welch added: “As another winter takes hold, NHS staff approach it this year without the protection of the covid vaccine.

Covid Inquiry report

“The Covid-19 Inquiry report should serve as a reminder to those in power of the damage wielded by this virus, and urge them to start implementing measures now to protect staff and patients, such as vaccinations, masks, ventilation to name a simple few.

“Politicians may want to forgot this saga, but NHS staff never will.”

Dr Alison George, a GP and member of the DAUK GP committee, said: “NHS staff have been totally excluded from the vaccination programme and the cost to purchase one privately ranges from £95 to £99.

“There is no clear explanation for such an irresponsible and short-sighted decision.

Long Covid

“Added to the physical effects on individual staff of acute and long Covid, it is likely to lead to increased staff sickness, cancellation of procedures and treatments and higher rates of nosocomial Covid.

“It is also worth considering the impact of the message this sends to staff and the public about the need for any mitigations against Covid.”

DAUK committee members are volunteers and campaign about issues facing doctors in their own time. Please support our work by joining DAUK or donating to our GoFundMe.

Whistleblower protections

Abolishing the National Guardian’s Office (NGO) — the only dedicated NHS body for supporting whistleblowers and embedding a ‘speak up’ culture — risks further silencing the clinicians who raise alarms about patient harm. The idea that app-based patient feedback can substitute robust, independent safety structures is not only reductive but dangerously naïve. DAUK has long supported NHS whistleblowers who have faced retaliation, career derailment, and mental health crises after exposing unsafe care. It is profoundly disheartening that no replacement framework for supporting staff who speak up appears to have been announced alongside the abolition of the NGO.

Learn not blame

Equally troubling is the closure of the HSSIB. The HSSIB is an organisation with a statutory remit to conduct independent, learning-based safety investigations without blame. This loss risks taking the NHS backwards to a time when system failures were buried rather than understood. Health Secretary Wes Streeting says these reforms will “hold a megaphone up to patients’ lips.” But we ask: who will be holding the megaphone for staff — especially those raising uncomfortable truths about failing services or leadership malpractice? We therefore call on the Government to urgently clarify: What new, independent structure will protect NHS staff who speak up about unsafe care, discrimination, or malpractice? How patient safety investigations will be preserved with the loss of HSSIB’s statutory function?

Safeguards

What safeguards will exist to ensure this reform does not weaken NHS transparency or accountability? DAUK supports reforms that genuinely streamline care and empower patients and staff alike. But stripping out safety oversight without clear replacements is not reform, it is risk. We urge the Government to meet with frontline representatives, including whistleblowers and patient safety advocates, before pressing ahead. Support our work by becoming a member or donating to our Go Fund Me.

CATA chair Dr Barry Jones gave evidence for 90 minutes at the UK Covid-19 Inquiry.

Support the work of the Doctors’ Association UK by becoming a member.

The Covid-19 Airborne Transmission Alliance (CATA), of which DAUK is a member, is set to give testimony of how UK healthcare officials have systematically denied overwhelming scientific evidence that COVID-19 is airborne.

CATA, which is a core participant in the inquiry, includes professional associations representing 65,000 healthcare workers as well as individual experts.

It’s chair, Dr Barry Jones, is due to take the stand on Thursday 12 September.

Since 2020, CATA’s membership has been seeking to persuade UK Health Officials to align national guidance to the scientific facts about how the disease is transmitted and how healthcare workers need to be protected from infection.

Kamini Gadhok, former CEO of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists and Vice Chair of CATA, said: “The way in which healthcare workers were abandoned to their fates and their professional knowledge was disregarded has left a scar on the UK’s healthcare system.

“The mental health crisis in the NHS and staff shortages all have their roots in the disregard for life and expertise that professionals experienced through the pandemic.”

Click here for more information on the hearing.

Support the work of the Doctors’ Association UK by becoming a member.