Doctors Association UK (DAUK) GP co-leads Dr Sarah Jacques and Dr Steve Taylor highlight the cases of nine-year-old Dylan Cope and eight-year-old Ethan Hanson.

In both cases, the children were appropriately assessed in primary care and urgently referred to hospital by their GP.

However, according to the coroners’ findings, neither child was assessed by a doctor after arriving at hospital.

Patient safety

Dr Jacques and Dr Taylor’s letter states: “These cases raise serious questions about the safety of current assessment systems in emergency departments and the roles of non-doctors.

“When a GP refers a patient to hospital, that referral represents a clinical judgment that is the equivalent of a medical consultant opinion in the community, and thus necessitates a further medical assessment.”

DAUK is urging health secretary James Murray to introduce clear national standards to ensure patients referred by GPs are assessed by a doctor on arrival in hospital.

They are:

• Any patient referred by a community GP to hospital by a GP must be assessed by a doctor in the hospital.
• No patient presenting with undifferentiated (undiagnosed) symptoms should be allowed to be assessed or discharged without the approval of a doctor.
• We ask the Secretary of State to review the current status of assessments in emergency departments to ensure patient safety is the priority and that doctors are involved in all cases of undifferentiated care and GP referrals.

Improvements in clinical practice

In their letter, Dr Jacques and Dr Taylor said: “It’s vital we ensure that the issues identified by the coroners in the cases of Dylan Cope and Ethan Hanson lead to improvements in clinical practice.”

DAUK has invited Mr Murray and Department of Health officials to discuss the proposals.

Read the letter in full.

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However, Mark Lucraft QC wrote:

“Coroners are independent judges. They make their judicial decisions independently on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the law and they exercise their judicial duty and discretion in relation to any death, including that of a healthcare worker, which is reported to them.”

Officials ordered 400,000 gowns from a private company but made no checks on whether the goods could be exported despite being aware of a restrictions imposed by President Tayyip Erdoğan.

They only contacted the Turkish Government to begin negotiations on Sunday – the day that it had been said that the gowns would land in the UK. The shipment finally landed at RAF Brize Norton on Wednesday, but was not complete.

It comes amid growing anger over the lack of PPE as it emerged that at least 100 health and care workers have lost their lives to Covid-19.

Dr Katie Sanderson, a doctor in Acute Medicine at a London hospital [and DAUK committee member] has called for all medics who lose their lives fighting the virus to be given an inquest as they died in the course of their employment.

A spokesman for the Doctors’ Association UK said it was important the deaths of all healthcare workers were investigated properly either through a coronial process or a public inquiry to ensure that lessons were learned.

Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, told the daily Downing Street press conference that the numbers of items of PPE needed are “absolutely vast” and in the billions each month.

1. The assurance that the deaths of their colleagues will be properly investigated.
In the first instant that means making sure that they’re all referred to Coroner’s, as deaths that are potentially unnatural, or occur as a result of employment.

2. Universal death in service benefits.
All of us are worried about dying as a result of being infected with coronavirus at work. People’s families shouldn’t be concerned about facing financial hardship if a member of their family,who is a health care worker, dies.

3. Protection for those from other countries.
We know that health care workers come from across the world and they have a whole array of Visa situations. If you die serving this country your family should not face deportation and this country should look after your family. This is a huge huge source of anxiety for many people.

.The call comes after significant data was gathered in collaboration with the Doctors Association UK, exposing “very significant gaps” in personal protective equipment provisions for staff fighting the virus on the frontline.The startling results show 38 per cent of doctors had no eye protection in accordance with Public Health England guidelines, 38 per cent of those who need FFP3 or similar masks do not have access and 47 per cent do not have access to long-sleeved gowns for procedures.

The government has declared 27 deaths of NHS staff from Covid-19, while there have been 125,856 total confirmed cases in the UK and 16,509 fatalities as of Tuesday afternoon, according to Johns Hopkins University.

Furthermore, Dr Katie Sanderson, a doctor in Acute Medicine at a London hospital [and DAUK committee member] believes it is essential that any fatalities throughout the pandemic among NHS or care staff are thoroughly investigated.