Covid-19: Government failed to protect staff during height of pandemic, experts tell MPs

Healthcare staff working at the height of the covid-19 pandemic in England were not properly protected and were forced to work in an unsafe environment, MPs have been told.

Appealing before the health and social care committee on 21 July, experts criticised the government and NHS management for their failure to provide staff with sufficient testing and personal protective equipment (PPE). The committee was gathering evidence for its inquiry into the management of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Paul Nurse, director of the Francis Crick Institute, said he believed that the failure to implement better testing systems in the early days of the pandemic had contributed significantly to the problems.

He said, “At the height of the pandemic, our own research—which backs up what’s been done elsewhere—found that up to 45% of healthcare workers were infected and they were infecting their colleagues and infecting patients, yet they weren’t being tested systematically.

“In the healthcare environment we weren’t providing proper protection, and it’s important because it protects the most vulnerable in our society and it protects our healthcare workers. They deserve to work in a safe environment, and some of them are dying because of what they do. They deserve better.”

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Source: BMJ, 22 July 2020