My NHS colleagues are committed but we are at maximum stretch

As I walk across the hospital complex and pause to look at the London tower blocks in the near distance, life could not be further removed from the green benches of parliament, a mere 45 minutes walk away. Covid-19 has changed everything. In mental health services, in the central London epicentre of Britain’s outbreak, we are used to caring for people who have severe mental illness, but we have been confronted with a new reality of caring for people who are also infected with coronavirus.

Hundreds of healthcare colleagues are already off sick. Others are self-isolating because a family member is showing symptoms. Our service is at maximum stretch.

Some former ministers have criticised the government’s handling of the crisis, but this is an unprecedented and rapidly evolving situation. We have not faced a global public health emergency on this scale for 100 years. Perhaps the national lockdown should have started earlier, and there will come a time for postmortems, but that time is not in the heat of the battle. In my view, the prime minister has made sound evidence-based decisions. Putting his libertarian instincts aside cannot have been easy, but he is making the right choices.

Very soon, we should see the benefits of lockdown, social distancing, and the self-isolation of the vulnerable and elderly, as lives are protected and saved. The emergency economic measures including nationalisation of some industries are driven by practicality not ideology, and we can all be proud of the speed and efficiency with which the British military has responded in opening new hospitals such as NHS Nightingale.

Where the government has been less surefooted is in understanding the practical challenges facing frontline NHS staff. Many of my colleagues are afraid for themselves and their families, but we turn up to work because we have a moral duty to use our skills to help care for people at this time of unprecedented national crisis.

I am fortunate that at my NHS hospital we have a strong senior leadership team who are looking out for the best interests of staff and who were preparing for the pandemic well in advance. As a result, we are luckier than most in that we have recently gained access to essential personal protective equipment. However, this is not the experience for many staff in nearby hospitals.

Similarly, a lack of testing kits for NHS staff has resulted in many of my colleagues self-isolating for seven or 14 days. NHS staff sickness levels are already high, and they are only going to increase as the outbreak intensifies. Many of us are also worried that we may be infected, yet showing no symptoms and could be a potential risk to patients, colleagues and families. That is the last thing that we would want, but we simply do not know. Widespread NHS staff testing would be a game changer and would help NHS clinicians to protect our patients and return to the frontline faster.

I am pleased that the government is now taking urgent action to address these issues, but both the national need for personal protective clothing for frontline NHS staff and the need to test NHS staff for the virus could have been foreseen many weeks ago.

When the government has got so much right in this crisis, it almost seems wrong to voice concerns, but I believe these equipment and virus testing kit challenges could have been avoided if there was a stronger clinical voice to inject a little more realism into the response and planning process. We have many such clinicians already in senior leadership roles in hospitals throughout the country. It’s time to better utilise their knowledge and experience in the fight.

Let me be clear. I believe the government overall has done very well in incredibly difficult circumstances that have created unprecedented challenges. The excellent central leadership team of scientists and epidemiologists has helped to develop a public health strategy that will save many lives. But as we move further into the clinical phase of the fight against Covid-19 we need more experienced and battle-hardened senior NHS veterans with lived experience from the frontline to add a stronger dose of clinical reality to the government’s strategy.

Dr Dan Poulter MP is a practising NHS psychiatrist and a former health minister (2012-15)