Coronavirus: NHS doctors feel like ‘lambs to slaughter’ without protective kit, warns senior medic

‘We must really stress to the prime minister that we need to protect the front line here’

Doctors battling the coronavirus outbreak feel like “lambs to the slaughter” without adequate protection equipment, a senior medic has said.

Dr Rinesh Parmar, chair of the Doctors’ Association, said frontline NHS staff were being treated as “cannon fodder” as he launched a desperate appeal to Boris Johnson for more resources to keep medics safe.

Dr Parmar, a consultant anaesthetist who is working on a Covid-19 intensive care ward, said it was the “calm before the storm” and NHS staff were braced for a surge in cases.

His warning came as nearly 4,000 NHS workers appealed to the prime minister to “protect the lives of the life-savers” and resolve the “unacceptable” shortage of protective equipment.

Dr Parmar told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show: “We have had doctors tell us they feel like lambs to the slaughter, that they feel like cannon fodder. GPs tell us that they feel absolutely abandoned.

“We must really stress to the prime minister that we need to protect the front line here.

“They are all pleading with Boris Johnson that they really urgently look into arranging the vital personal protection equipment that all of us need on the NHS front line.”

He said NHS staff were concerned about lack of an adequate supply of masks, safety glasses, gloves, aprons and protective suits to fight the virus.

Dr Parmar said: “What our doctors are telling us is that although equipment is arriving, some of it is inadequate, some of it doesn’t meet the World Health Organisation guidance.

“That really doesn’t fill frontline healthcare staff with the confidence that they need that the protective equipment they are being provided is at all adequate.”

Robert Jenrick, the communities secretary, said the government was working “round the clock” to ensure NHS staff had the right equipment to do their jobs.

He said: “We are making progress on this, good progress. Extra supplies are being supplied to hospitals.

“I think by this afternoon every hospital will have had the next set of supplies of PPE [personal protective equipment].”

Pharmacists and GPs have also received equipment, with supplies due to go out to social care providers this week, Mr Jenrick said.

He added: “We’re manufacturing and importing very large quantities now. In recent days we’ve taken receipt of almost three million face masks, for example.

“So PPE will get to the front line as soon as possible.”

In an open letter to The Sunday Times, some 3,963 doctors said staff were “putting their lives on the line every day” by treating coronavirus patients without appropriate protection.

The letter said: “Frontline doctors have been telling us for weeks that they do not feel safe at work.

“Intensive care doctors and anaesthetists have told us they have been carrying out the highest-risk procedure, putting a patient on a ventilator, with masks that expired in 2015.”