NHS leaders warn on early relaxation of virus rules in England
Health leaders have warned against the premature relaxation of pandemic restrictions in England, suggesting that plans to clear record NHS waiting lists could be at risk, and challenged ministers to disclose the scientific basis for their “living with Covid” strategy.
A poll of more than 300 senior NHS leaders by the NHS Confederation, which represents health organisations in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, found more than eight out of 10 opposed an end to free lateral flow tests, a move being considered by the government. Even more, 94 per cent, wanted free access to LFTs retained for key workers.
Boris Johnson, prime minister, this month proposed the abolition of the legal requirement to self-isolate in England after a positive Covid-19 test. However, more than three-quarters of respondents to the confederation survey rejected the idea, which Johnson suggested could come into force in late February.
The survey also found that more than four out of five people polled would be against ending compulsory mask wearing in NHS and other care settings.
The confederation suggested a plan to clear NHS waiting lists, which now stand at more than 6mn, might be in jeopardy if such measures to reduce infections were removed.
Elective treatments, access to general practice and other routine care provided by the NHS could all be disrupted “if further strains of coronavirus were allowed to spread across the country with reduced national oversight”, it warned.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive, said hospital admissions and deaths linked to coronavirus were continuing to fall across the UK. “But the government cannot wave a magic wand and pretend the threat has disappeared entirely,” he added.
Warning ministers not to be “gung-ho”, Taylor said health leaders wanted “a cautious and evidence-led approach. This must not be driven by political expediency”.
Elsewhere in the survey, 83 per cent of those questioned supported the continuation of the weekly Office for National Statistics infection survey, which has tracked household infection rates since June 2020. There have been suggestions that it could be scrapped or sharply scaled back. “If this happened, it would mean that the country’s ability to detect new variants will be limited significantly,” the confederation said.
Its warnings were amplified by Dr Katherine Henderson, president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, who warned there were still high levels of coronavirus in the population and that many people remained vulnerable to serious illness.
“There is already a risk that the elective care plan will be quickly derailed by the crisis in emergency care but lifting restrictions and revoking free testing could lead to a new wave of Covid pressures on emergency departments, which will disrupt elective care even further,” Henderson said.
Also taking aim at the plans, Prof Dame Helen Stokes-Lampard, who chairs the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, suggested that relaxing the rules earlier than originally expected “feels very sudden and driven as much by the current political pressures than by robust scientific guidance”.
The Royal College of Nursing demanded that ministers present the scientific basis for their proposed changes. Pat Cullen, chief executive, said ending the legal requirement to self-isolate following a positive test would be “a big leap in the dark”.
“Our members, for whom this pandemic is far from over, need to know there is a sound scientific basis for doing it,” she said.
With any other highly infectious disease “you would be expected — and supported — to stay away from work if you caught it, yet with Covid-19 we’re being told you should learn to live with it”, she added.
Ministers must put forward a clear plan for health and social care staff who treated some of the most vulnerable in society, to ensure neither staff nor patient wellbeing was put at risk, Cullen said.