Coronavirus: Backlash at NHS protective clothing advice change after shortages
Changes to safety advice over the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) by NHS staff in the face of shortages has sparked a storm of protest.
The controversy came as a frontline coronavirus intensive care worker told Sky News that his team were down to their last box of protective hairnets and had been told to no longer “double glove” and to start reusing disposable gowns.
He felt the revised guidance around the wearing of protective clothing to treat patients with COVID-19 was based on the stock available rather than clinical evidence, raising safety concerns.
Health staff had previously been instructed to wear long-sleeved disposable fluid repellent gowns.
But NHS Providers, which represents hospital trusts, warned some would run out of supplies in the next 24-48 hours.
Public Health England (PHE) changed its guidance on Friday, asking doctors and nurses to work without full-length gowns and to reuse items “until confirmation of adequate resupply is in place”, as “some compromise is needed to optimise the supply of PPE in times of extreme shortages”.
The move has provoked an angry backlash as it was revealed a further 888 coronavirus patients had died in UK hospitals, taking the total number to 15,464.
The British Medical Association has warned that doctors and nurses should not be asked to “put their lives on the line” to save others, and said PHE’s decision was “a further admission of the dire situation that some doctors and healthcare workers continue to find themselves in because of government failings”.
Dr Rob Harwood, chairman of the BMA consultants committee, said: “If it’s being proposed that staff reuse equipment, this must be demonstrably driven by science and the best evidence – rather than availability – and it absolutely cannot compromise the protection of healthcare workers.”
The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) echoed these concerns and claimed it was not consulted about the change in guidance, adding it was “unacceptable” if PPE was not provided in a healthcare setting.
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