Bradford doctor left bed-bound by long Covid leads bid to sue NHS over PPE

• Jonathan Brown talks to Dr Kelly Fearnley about the severe impact of long CovidA doctor who is leading a bid to sue the NHS for failing to provide frontline staff with adequate protective equipment during the pandemic says workers were "deliberately and repeatedly" exposed to Covid.

Dr Kelly Fearnley, 37, was left bed-bound for a year and continues to suffer from long Covid having caught the virus while working at Bradford Royal Infirmary in November 2020.

She co-founded Long Covid Doctors for Action, which is pledging legal action against the NHS for injury and financial loss resulting from failing to take steps to prevent exposure.

Dr Fearnley believes frontline staff remain at risk.

She said: "Throughout the pandemic healthcare workers have been deliberately and repeatedly exposed to Covid. Nothing has changed.

"We know Covid is airborne and there are currently no protections in hospital."

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She added: "We cannot begin to talk about lessons learnt when the same mistakes are being made."

Dr Fearnley volunteered to treat Covid patients after graduating from Leeds Medical School in spring 2020. She said in the early months of the pandemic she was wearing high grade PPE and did not catch Covid.But when she was deployed to a Covid ward at Bradford Royal Infirmary during a surge in infections in November 2020, she was only given a surgical mask.

She told ITV News: "I spent about ten hours for five consecutive days on a Covid ward surrounded by Covid patients all coughing and breathing and speaking into the air.

"So essentially [I was] in a Covid suit, unprotected, or inadequately protected. Then I fell unwell after that. I tested positive two days after that."Dr Fearnley later suffered complications and continues to feel the effects of the virus.

She said: "I've experienced violent shaking. I used to shake for 14 hours at a time. It's damaged my hearing. I experienced brain inflammation. I spent several weeks hallucinating. I spent the first year [after infection] bed-bound. The second year mostly bed-bound." She says the illness has "impacted every aspect" of her life and left her unable to pursue her ambition of working in emergency medicine.

She added that while she had seen some "slow improvement", a survey found one in five doctors who caught Covid could not return to work. She said: "They still find it difficult to feed themselves, to get dressed, to take care of their children. Doctors have not only lost their health and independence. Many are now facing financial destitution."Dr Fearnley said some doctors had been forced to sell their homes because of the financial impact.She blamed the Government for downgrading healthcare workers' PPE during the pandemic, saying the decision "was not based on science".

"The Government wasted £15 billion of taxpayers' money on unusable PPE. This PPE failed to meet health and safety standards," she said. "I know colleagues who were using PPE that was out of date, that caused a choking hazard."

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: "Throughout the pandemic the government acted to save lives and livelihoods, prevent the NHS being overwhelmed and deliver a world-leading vaccine rollout which protected millions of lives across the nation.

"We have always said there are lessons to be learnt from the pandemic and we are committed to learning from the Covid-19 Inquiry’s findings which will play a key role in informing the government’s planning and preparations for the future. We will consider all recommendations made to the department in full."

An NHS spokesperson added: “The NHS acted in line with infection prevention control guidance developed by a group of organisations including the Public Health Agencies across the four nations, the Department of Health and Social Care and the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group – which was in line with guidance set out by the World Health Organisation – and with the PPE made available to it by government at the beginning of the pandemic.”

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