As Emergency Department doctors, we were always going to be on the frontline. In spring 2020, we were taken to one side and it was suggested we might have to say goodbye to our relatives for the foreseeable future. Few realise the fear generated in hospitals in 2020.
NHS
The relaxation of the mask requirement in healthcare settings
On the 1st of June 2022, NHS England issued further guidance regarding the use of face masks in clinical settings. In what could be – optimistically – construed as further progress towards the Government’s ‘Living with covid’ goal, this latest official briefing directs hospitals and other care settings to end the requirement for staff, patients and visitors to wear face coverings in most wards and departments.
Why the NHS must drop remaining restrictions and covid policies
We are now well over two years into the Covid pandemic and heading into summer. At this point the Government has long-since dropped all the Covid mandates and told the public that we must “learn to live with Covid”; hospitality venues, bars and theatres are full of people socialising and enjoying themselves; face masks are now a far rarer sight in shops and on public transport; and there are more smiles and spontaneous hugs being seen in public.
Why are healthcare venues persisting with masks?
The evidence that masking healthy people in community settings reduces viral transmission is – at best – weak and contradictory. In light of this lack of empirical support for the effectiveness of face coverings, together with the multiple harms associated with them, HART welcomes the lifting of all mask mandates in the UK.
Hospital restrictions remain absurd and cruel
Following our recent article highlighting isolation and neglect in care homes, we are appalled to report that the situation is only slowly improving. What is more, many NHS sites are still imposing draconian and vindictive policies. Children are being separated from parents and dying relatives are being abandoned to a lonely end.
Do NHS Exemptions from the Covid vaccines really exist?
Recently published in the Conservative Woman was an extraordinary account by a woman with a history of severe allergies who nevertheless was refused an NHS vaccine exemption.
Informed consent?
Over the last 7 months, a group of health professionals and scientists have written repeatedly to the MHRA, the JCVI and the Chief Medical Officers regarding the safety data (or lack of) for covid-19 vaccinations for children. These letters have gone largely unanswered.
Hang on a minute…
On 15 November Boris Johnson gave a press conference urging everyone to get their booster shots. This has caused much confusion in the minds of the thus far ‘fully vaccinated’.
Can we rely on NIMS (National Immunisation Management Service) figures?
Changing the total population estimate results in large swings in the estimate of ‘case’ rates in the unvaccinated. Given the inability to be accurate within a few percentage points, and the uncertainty about whether the inaccuracies are overestimating or underestimating the total, the differences between populations is not as informative as the trend in rates within each of the populations.
FULL ARTICLE: One in 20 people vaccinated since April had to be added to the NIMS database
To understand case, hospitalisations and death rates in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations it is essential to know how many people there are in each.
NHS vaccine mandates would cause staff shortages this winter
The logic of mandating vaccines in the NHS is hard to fathom, particularly given mandates for care home staff are due to come into force on 11th November and may also affect at least 10% of care workers in a sector already facing critical staff shortages.
Mask mandates: bad and harmful
With regards further mask mandates, inaction is infinitely more rational than action.
Select Committee report on the handling of the pandemic
Government report overlooks the butterfly effects of lockdowns
COVID risks in pregnant women
When deaths and cases are not frightening enough the media turn, as they did last year, to pregnant women to promote fear.
Increasing numbers of PCR positives are asymptomatic
After months of UK Government advertising making the dubious claim that 1 in 3 people have asymptomatic Covid-19, is there any supporting evidence of this?
Vaccine mandates for healthcare workers
16 September 2021 – So are mandatory vaccinations already a feature of NHS life, as is claimed?
NHS Protocol for treatment of COVID-19
15 July 2021 – Nearly a year and a half after the country was locked down to protect the NHS, how is the NHS performing in managing the very condition that so threatened it?
Compulsory vaccination for NHS staff back on the agenda?
3 June 2021 – A number of professional bodies — such as the Royal College of General Practitioners and the Royal College of Nursing — have already rejected the notion that COVID-19 vaccination for staff should be compulsory. Nevertheless, the government signalled its intention to consider mandating vaccination for NHS staff.
