Healthcare charities and patient groups are calling on NHS England to reintroduce Covid-19 precautions for staff amid fears clinically vulnerable patients and medics will be put at risk this winter.
As Covid safety measures were lifted earlier this year, NHS England staff are no longer required to wear masks in clinical settings. Most healthcare workers who have symptoms of a respiratory infection will no longer be asked to take a Covid test.
The number of people testing positive in England rose by 30% to 16,000 cases in the seven days to September 30. According to government data, the number of hospitalizations rose 25% to 3,800 in the same period.
Charities and organizations including Blood Cancer UK, Anthony Nolan, Kidney Care UK, Mencap, Forgotten Lives UK and Clinically Vulnerable Families have called for patients to have the right to require a member of staff to wear a mask and for masks to be reintroduced In all cases, symptomatic testing. Some are also calling for asymptomatic testing for staff who work near patients who are at risk of becoming seriously ill or dying from the virus.
Clinically vulnerable people say they are missing vital medical supplies as health protection measures have been lifted. Others were seen by staff with Covid symptoms and without masks, despite saying they were at risk. General practices and hospitals are often high-risk settings due to the large number of clinically vulnerable people who rely on them and the high social mix.
“Many of the most vulnerable people face the impossible choice of either accessing essential medical treatment or exposing themselves to increased risk of contracting the coronavirus, in the very places where they should be safest,” said Mark Oakley, spokesman for Forgotten Families UK. “Our members are telling us that they are now canceling or postponing treatments and we are seeing that this is leading to further health problems.” He said there should be simple, inexpensive precautions such as mask requirements and regular testing to address this disparity in access to health care remove. “No patient should be afraid to enter a hospital, a general practitioner’s office or a vaccination center.”
A survey by Forgotten Lives Britainexclusively seen by the observerfound that half of clinically vulnerable people surveyed had canceled a doctor’s appointment due to concerns about a lack of Covid precautions. More than a quarter had canceled or refused a booster vaccination for the same reason.
Glynis Huskisson – who is immunocompromised due to a kidney transplant and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and did not produce enough antibodies from the vaccine – was told by her adviser to “avoid Covid at all costs”. Most members of their healthcare team are not wearing masks or testing for the virus.
The 70-year-old needs a hip replacement and surgery for nerve damage, but has postponed both due to a lack of precautions. She is in constant pain. Huskisson also needs surgery for an enlarged thyroid, but doesn’t feel safe. “It’s growing and starting to crush my windpipe,” she said. “I feel alone and betrayed.”
Andrew Jennings* works as a senior nurse in the NHS and is “terrifyingly scared”. “We are now being told not to test ourselves and that we have to buy our own anyway. We are advised not to wear masks in almost all situations,” he says. “It is exhausting.”
Jennings is immunocompromised due to the medication he takes for multiple sclerosis and has contracted Covid twice at work. He felt so bad that he needed antivirals and weeks of rest. This month he learned that – unlike previous vaccine rollouts – his trusted NHS staff will not be offered a booster vaccination locally, making it “impossible” to take time off to get vaccinated elsewhere.
“I feel just as unsafe at work as I did at the height of the pandemic,” he said. “At least then people were testing, masking up and self-isolating if they had symptoms.” Laura Challinor, senior policy and public affairs manager at Blood Cancer UK, said the charity would like to see more Covid testing in clinical settings. “Earlier this year, symptomatic testing in hospitals was greatly reduced. As we move into the fall, given rising Covid-19 cases and uncertainty surrounding a new variant, routine testing should now be reintroduced in healthcare settings to monitor and mitigate the risk to people with compromised immune systems.”
The NHS said: “While decisions about wider mask wearing locally are made based on risk assessments, the guidance clearly recommends that staff should continue to wear face masks when treating patients with Covid-19, and that this should also be universal Wearing masks should be considered in situations where patients are at high risk of infection due to immunosuppression.”
* The name has been changed