UK senior doctor: We’re ‘drained and scared’

The U.K.’s National Health Service is in a “far worse place” now than it was during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic, and many people “feel utterly drained and scared,” top doctor Andrew Goddard said.

With roughly 50 percent more hospital admissions than during the first wave, Andrew Goddard, the president of the Royal College of Physicians, told London Playbook: “This is busier than anybody currently working in the NHS has ever experienced.”

Goddard said he believes the NHS will have enough beds to cope with the increasing hospitalizations, but more patients may need to be transferred away from their local hospital to where there is capacity further afield. “Everyone’s going to have to muck in. I think then there will be enough beds. But we will be sweating the NHS asset harder than it has ever been sweated before,” he said.

The NHS workforce is pulling together in the face of adversity, said Goddard, whose organization represents 39,000 medics. “There is very much also a feeling of we are all in this together — and we will get through it. There’s a belief that this is our time, this is what we trained for. It’s hard but there is light at the end of the tunnel with vaccinations.”

Goddard said there was still a “mixed picture” across the country in terms of the rollout of vaccinations to front-line health care staff, but said it was “utterly achievable” for all to get a jab by the end of the month. “That’s what we should aim for.”

Goddard, a consultant physician and gastroenterologist who has been working shifts on the wards at the Royal Derby Hospital caring for COVID and other patients, warned of a “significant mental effect, burnout and potentially PTSD in some groups of staff” at the sharp end of the pandemic response, but also of a more widespread risk of “disaffection” when the worst of the crisis is over. “I really worry about retention afterwards,” he said. “People who weren’t sure whether they wanted to stay in the NHS or were thinking ‘when am I going to retire?’ may well leave earlier than planned. Clearly — given where we are, where we were even before COVID — that would be a disaster. We can’t afford to lose any more staff.”

Goddard proposed that NHS staff should get special leave to help them cope with the added strain of the pandemic. “If you work for the U.N. in a disaster zone, in your job plan you have timetabled time-out in order for you to get over it,” he said. “I think we need to have the same attitude here. NHS staff are probably going to need to have specific time away from the front line in order to recuperate and be at their best for the restart.”

NHS understaffing, Goddard said, was “the root of all problems” in the health service — and addressing it should be a post-pandemic priority.