Coronavirus PPE 'inadequate', says NHS frontline worker

Tyne Tees
NHS
Coronavirus
Wednesday 15 April 2020 at 6:57pm

Exclusive: A NHS frontline worker from one of the hospitals in the North East and North Yorkshire region has told ITV News Tyne Tees they are being forced to work with "inadequate" Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) during the coronavirus outbreak.

Speaking anonymously the NHS worker told ITV News that staff are "feeling overwhelmed and let down", because the PPE they have been given to work with "doesn’t seem to fit in with the World Health Organisation recommendations".

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said "we are working around the clock to give the NHS and the wider social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this outbreak... in line with WHO advice".

Watch @krisjepson's report here:

The NHS frontline worker explained how, since the UK-wide lockdown was announced, the policy at the hospital they work at had changed.

They said around five weeks ago hospital staff were told to wear full PPE to screen potential coronavirus patients, but that practice is no longer taking place.

Now we’re down to wearing normal gloves, bare below the elbows. Then you wear a pinny. It’s a plastic loop over your neck. It covers your chest, the front of your uniform down to your knees, so when you’re examining a patient or providing nursing care, cleaning, bed care, helping to move a patient you’re coming very close to them and almost certainly areas of unprotected uniform will come into contact with potentially contaminated areas, so the risk of transmission becomes much greater if you’re not fully covered. We feel that we’re being put at risk essentially and it's not just the frontline. I've spoken to members of staff who are in contact with patients, but aren’t considered by the Trust to be 'frontline', which I think is disappointing, because if you are on a front desk booking someone in, then your risk of potential infection is pretty high.

PPE Credit: ITV News

Responding to the interview a spokesperson from the Department of Health told ITV News "we are working around the clock to give the NHS and the wider social care sector the equipment and support they need to tackle this outbreak."

The worker said access to facial protection of the eyes, nose and mouth has been difficult, explaining that the hospital had to initially rely on the community to produce make-shift eye protection and goggles for staff.

They said "we ran out of visors the first couple of weeks and we know there’s a risk of transmission via the eyes, so the goggles that we were initially provided with were just inadequate. They didn’t stay on your face as soon as you bent over and they left too much gap around the eye. The masks we are using are dated 'expired 2014', with stickers overlaying them of '2019'."

Coronavirus Credit: ITV News

Critical too on the guidance now being given to staff about what procedures should and should not require full PPE, the worker questioned how safe some of the procedures now are when treating coronavirus patients.

The worker told ITV News "nebulisers aren’t considered to be aerosol generated, which I think is interesting, because if a patient coughs into a nebuliser and the nebuliser droplets are coming out, I’m sure there must be a risk of contamination, but apparently 'evidence' suggests at the moment that isn’t the case.

"However, you read information from around the world and they take the nebuliser in and the patient is shown how to press the button to turn the nebuliser on and you exit the room and the patient nebulises. And again, I feel that it’s one of those areas that we could find, anecdotally, puts us at risk."

PPE Credit: ITV News

The NHS frontline worker explained their team has had to change the way it operates, for example, no longer can they "hold a patient's hand" or "provide some sort of support and relief".

They said "things like breaking bad news, telling families that their relative is deteriorating, we would never normally do that over the phone, but because of infection control, that’s what we’re having to do and that’s really, really hard.

"I think it must be so difficult for families whose relatives are in hospital and they have no contact and no way of really knowing what’s happening. That’s really hard for us, because we’re restricted and there’s nothing we can do. We can do our best, but it's awful to see a patient scared and not really be able to do anything to alleviate that anxiety."

The worker said their biggest fear is having to make life or death decisions over who can and cannot receive intensive care treatment via ventilators, due to random factors like age.