NHS doctor discusses coronavirus waiting list backlog

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And today the Daily Express leads a chorus of calls for them to be awarded the honour collectively for only the third time in history. Professor Kailash Chand, 70, is among those championing the NHS force. He started work as a GP in 1983 and during a 35-year career became one of the most respected healthcare professionals in the world. Now Honorary Vice-President of the British Medical Association, he said: “We owe those working in the NHS a huge debt of thanks, and what better way to repay them than to award the George Cross.

“Without question I support this 100 percent. Throughout the greatest emergency in the history of the health service the people working across the NHS never once shirked their responsibility and always did their best.

“What we’ve experienced I liken to a war. And it’s because of what those working from top to bottom of the organisation have done that we are now in a very good position with the success of the vaccine rollout.”

Since the virus took hold 14 months ago it has left 151,000 dead, including at least 230 frontline health and care workers.

The 1.3 million heroes working in the NHS – from surgeons and consultants to midwives and porters – have valiantly battled around the clock and many are left with deep psychological scars.

NHS Charities Together, the health service charity, has set aside £150million to support staff and patients during the fallout.

Yesterday the Cabinet Office – responsible for recommending honours – confirmed the Government was “considering very carefully” ways to recognise their sacrifices and thank them.

It hinted a George Cross could be one of them.

The NHS Confederation – the umbrella group for all health service bodies – also threw its weight behind the campaign.

Chief executive Danny Mortimer said: “The health and care workforce have shown tremendous fortitude, resilience and selflessness throughout the pandemic.

“It is only right they should be recognised for this.We owe them an incalculable debt of gratitude. Our members tell us their staff are exhausted, overstretched and in desperate need of respite.

“The workforce urgently needs significant investment and we are urging the Government to set out a fully costed and funded long-term staffing plan that addresses supply and vacancy issues, while the health service continues to work hard to improve services for patients.”

The George Cross was established in 1940 – eight years before the NHS was born – and is equal in stature to the Victoria Cross, the highest military gallantry award. It can be given to a person of any military rank in any service – and to civilians, including the emergency services.

It has been awarded 408 times, around half of those posthumously. If NHS workers do get the award it will be the third time a group has been honoured collectively. Malta was given the George Cross by the Queen’s father King George VI on April 15, 1942, for its heroism in the Second World War.

And on November 23, 1999, the Queen awarded it to the Royal Ulster Constabulary – now the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

The last recipient was Major Dominic Troulan in 2017 – the first civilian recipient in more than 40 years. He repeatedly risked his life to save 200 people, including a baby, in a terrorist attack on a shopping centre in Nairobi, Kenya.

The retired major, who served in the Special Forces for two decades, returned 12 times to find and save people from the mall in 2013. Tory MP Robert Halfon said: “Those working for the NHS and many other professions who have kept this show on the road during the pandemic are the real heroes and should be recognised as such.

“I am thinking of the bin men who have collected our rubbish without fail, the supermarket workers, those running corner shops which stocked toilet paper…the police, delivery drivers and teachers.

“They don’t earn a fortune but weren’t able to stay at home. There absolutely needs to be recognition for these people, the real heroes of the pandemic, who risked their lives to make ours easier.”

Daily Express reader John Douglas Meikle is one of tens of millions of Britons grateful for the work those in the NHS do day in day out.

He wants the George Cross awarded “for their valiant services to humanity and the nation under unprecedented adversity”.

He added: “I can think of no better way to publicly demonstrate to them and the world how much their personal sacrifice and devotion to duty is appreciated.” The Cabinet Office said: “We do, of course, appreciate there is a huge appetite to say thank you to all those on the front line, particularly the NHS, who have contributed so much.

“Many suggestions have been made as to how we might remember, reward and recognise those involved and it is something the Government is considering very carefully.”

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