Healthcare organisations that represent our NHS keyworkers are calling for more protection in the pandemic. More than 20 organisations, representing doctors, nurses, surgeons, therapists and other essential healthcare workers, are asking for stricter UK guidelines surrounding PPE and facemasks.
In an meeting with health officials, held virtually because of the pandemic, the organisations requested higher grade PPE. They claim the PPE used by healthcare workers is leaving them “vulnerable to infection through the air”.
This is an unprecedented appeal. Never before has this amount of organisations come together to appeal a single issue. Together, they argue that countries such as the United States of America are protecting workers with better PPE.
The meeting will see representatives from The Royal College of Nursing and The British Medical Association discuss plans with 20 senior Government officials. These officials will be representative of the four UK nations and are involved in setting the current PPE guidelines.
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The pandemic has seen millions of people gravely ill or dead. Over 1,000 health and care workers have been killed by Covid 19 in the UK alone. The organisations fight for better PPE is essential, with the risk of airborne transmission in hospitals remaining high.
The argument requests for stricter guidelines surrounding the PPE people wear when looking after Covid patients. They are asking for a mask specifically designed to guard against infectious diseases. Similar masks to the N95 respirators – the masks that US government require their health care workers to wear.
Concerns surrounding the PPE were raised as early as April last year by BAPEN. An objection raised to the introduction of FFP3 (N95) is that they cost much more than the current masks. Dr Gillian Higgins, trainee surgeon and researcher, believes she may have found a solution.
Her team has set up charity, MedSupplyDrive UK. The charity has donated over 500,000 pieces of PPE and are researching how to make the masks cheaper. Discussions with manufacturers are ongoing, but Dr Higgins has found options for reuseable masks. These work out as cheaper over the course of a year.
So far, 17 hospital and ambulance trusts are wearing FFP3 masks, breaking with Government guidance. Dr Higgins thinks the distributing these nationally is the only way to stop the “postcode lottery” of which health and care providers survive the pandemic.
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