The Guardian reports on the experiences of NHS staff working in hospitals across London during the Covid-19 second wave, with DAUK’s Dr David Nicholl describing his fears on the unfolding crisis as a consultant in the West Midlands. The article is shared in full below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was when Claire* was walking around central London before Christmas that it hit home how bad the situation would be in her hospital over the festive period. As hordes of shoppers gathered, the \u201cpenny dropped\u201d, bringing into sharp focus the enormity of what the\u00a0NHS<\/a>\u00a0would be facing this winter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Her fears have become reality. The intensive care doctor says she and her colleagues have returned to the \u201cfire fighting\u201d they did at the start of the pandemic. It is a case of NHS staff not eating or being able to go to the toilet for a whole shift, with the number of people requiring her help growing by the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n News that the Oxford\/AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use in the UK<\/a> is welcomed by Claire, who has just had the first dose of the Pfizer\/BioNTech vaccine. But, she says, it will do little to ease demand over the next few weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt does not make a difference this month,\u201d she says. \u201cI don\u2019t know what lies ahead. I think that largely depends on what people do today [in terms of social distancing and following the rules].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The situation she faces right now is trying to find more beds for those who need urgent help, and doing so without enough nurses. In normal times, intensive care nurses would deal with one patient at a time, now there are two to three patients per nurse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis means they cannot be as meticulous as they normally would be,\u201d she says. \u201cI worked Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday last week and it was long days, just patient after patient coming in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Will Broughton, from the College of Paramedics, echoes Claire\u2019s words when he describes the unrelenting pressure on NHS services, saying he was \u201cexceptionally busy\u201d on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He talks of delays at hospitals across London, saying he had to wait for two hours to get one patient inside from his ambulance. \u201cOne of my colleagues was waiting at one hospital for three hours after their 12-hour shift finished. There is no let-up, it\u2019s just constant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He says he is encouraged by the vaccine news but that there needs to be \u201cconsistency\u201d in how vaccines are rolled out to frontline healthcare staff, with many NHS workers worried about getting the virus and becoming unwell or even dying. He says he is aware of 25 ambulance staff deaths across the UK this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Oxford vaccination programme will start on 4 January and will aim to reach millions of people in at-risk categories as quickly as possible. The emergence of a new variant of the virus causing high rates of infection has made vaccination even more urgent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI have not yet had a vaccine,\u201d says Broughton. \u201cThe reality is that we are offered very short-notice appointments. I think yesterday there were appointments at one hospital but there was no way I or others could get there to have it on time,\u201d he says, adding that they need to have a day off to get immunised.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNHS staff must be prioritised as we are still seeing high levels of sickness and high numbers of people who are having to isolate or testing positive for the virus,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s all very well to look forward to the spring and the supposed end of this phase of the pandemic, but the reality is that we still have a very busy winter to deal with and the next two, three or even four weeks will be incredibly busy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr David Nicholl, from Doctors\u2019 Association UK, which represents frontline medics, works in the Midlands and says a recent tweet from a fellow doctor, showing a rise in cases in the Black Country and Birmingham, made him realise that the scenes playing out in London could soon be at his door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s key that frontline staff get vaccinated,\u201d he says without hesitation, adding that his trust had started immunising workers but the whole country needs to \u201cupscale massively\u201d.<\/p> \u201cWe have not yet seen the train wreck of Covid in London and it is inevitable that train is coming towards me right now,\u201d he says.<\/p>Dr David Nicholl, DAUK<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n *Not her real name<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n The article can be found in full here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n