There follows a guest post by Dr. Elizabeth Evans, Director of U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance, who says it’s past time the NHS joined the rest of the country in a return to normality. You can support the UKMFA “NHS Back To Normal” campaign by adopting the “NHS drop the restrictions” logo as your profile photo on social media.
We are now well over two years into the Covid pandemic and heading into summer. At this point, the Government has long-since dropped all the Covid mandates and told the public that we must “learn to live with Covid”. Hospitality venues, bars and theatres are full of people socialising and enjoying themselves; face masks are now a far rarer sight in shops and on public transport; and there are more smiles and spontaneous hugs being seen in public.
Yet when you enter a healthcare facility you could be forgiven for thinking you had entered a time warp and were back in the bad old days of lockdown 2020. Even as you enter you are met with gallons of hand sanitiser, Perspex screens, masked staff and even security guards barring the way and interrogating would-be patients and their chaperones. Aggressive notices on doors, walls and even the floor instruct you as to where you are or are not allowed to be and what you must wear, do or not do. Sick and vulnerable people are being denied the support of a loved one in outpatient appointments and A&E, and visitors to inpatients are severely restricted or, in some cases, barred.
This creates a dehumanising and intimidating environment which provokes an instinctive and unpleasant fear response in many who experience it, which is not conducive to the delivery of the high-quality care that we expect from the NHS, instead often resulting in worse health outcomes. The failure to let go of these measures and allow a return to normal practice is perpetuating unnecessary and irrational fear which will prevent society from moving forward.
The U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance has launched a new campaign “NHS Back to Normal“, supporting a wider call from medical experts, politicians (including Sajid Javid) and other campaigners to drop the remaining Covid restrictions imposed on NHS staff, visitors and patients. Enough is enough – it is time for the NHS to come into line with the rest of society and end the draconian restrictions that are causing fear and harm to patients, staff and visitors, and return to normal practice. If not now, then when?
It is imperative that NHS Trusts must allow normal visiting without restrictions, in line with the Government guidelines issued to the NHS in March 2022. We appeal to NHS Trust CEOs, in our Open Letter, to remove all Covid-related restrictions on the visitation of hospitalised patients and the accompanying of outpatients and A&E attendees, which have led to countless patients being cruelly deprived of company and support from their family and friends during times of vulnerability and suffering. These policies are disproportionate, unethical and inhuman, and the legal right to be accompanied to medical appointments and to receive healthy visitors in hospital must be upheld at all times.
We are also calling for the immediate discontinuation of all face mask requirements in the NHS for staff, visitors and patients, so that the wearing of a mask is entirely an individual choice. The legal requirements for face masks have now been lifted throughout the U.K. Nevertheless, the NHS continues to require its staff, patients and visitors to cover their faces within their healthcare facilities. We have written Open Letters to NHS Chief Executives and GP Practice Managers to make face masks optional for all staff, patients and visitors, with immediate effect.
In our Open Letters we detail the lack of evidence of benefit and the wealth of evidence of harms resulting from the use of face masks. We urge the NHS to uphold the principle of evidence-based medicine in its policies and practices. We also remind the CEOs that NHS staff are required to uphold the core principles of the NHS Constitution, medical ethics and professional codes of practice, including the right to informed consent. Denying staff, patients and visitors the right to decline a medical intervention (a face mask) without coercion, penalty or restriction is in breach of these principles and codes.
We are also calling for a full return to face-to-face consultations in hospitals and primary care.
Covid testing of asymptomatic staff, patients and visitors is scientifically unjustifiable and is causing huge staff shortage issues, with asymptomatic (healthy) staff taking time off and adding to the much-reported staff shortages. To impose testing on a healthy person as a condition of visiting violates the principles of informed consent and medical ethics. This wasteful, polluting, harmful and pointless practice must stop now.
The nation has spent two years ‘saving the NHS’, at great cost to wider public health, the doctor-patient relationship and the practice of ethical medicine which requires us to “First do no Harm”. It is time for the NHS to save us and return to the principles of its Constitution which states:
The NHS belongs to the people. It is there to improve our health and wellbeing, supporting us to keep mentally and physically well, to get better when we are ill and, when we cannot fully recover, to stay as well as we can to the end of our lives…. It touches our lives at times of basic human need, when care and compassion are what matter most.
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I agree with the article.
But the NHS isn’t about the patients. I would have said it’s more about the staff, but then they were threatened with job losses at one point, for failure to have the magic jab.
The NHS is all about the NHS. To me, it’s a self perpetuating entity, a perpetual motion machine, looking after itself first and foremost. .
It’s a bloatocracy… all bureaucracies, after a certain point, exist to further their own needs, not those of the suckers who pay for it.
There is a mobile death chamber set up in our local Tesco car park. Full on masks, visors and aprons if you will. I roar with laughter when driving by.
Worth a thumbs up for that alone.
Jabbatoir?
Mobile jabbatoir.
I prefer Jabatorium.
No stab, no luck!
Come to our exciting mobile perforatorium!
The next extremely rare side-effect could be yours!
Stabbatoir?
Any Zyklon B canisters in evidence?
I’ll never take part again. No mask, no jab, no anything. And they can’t make me. No law in the land can make me or anyone take part. i AM A FREE MAN.
As is anyone reading this. Know your rights.
Time for the NHS to get back to normal killing people at lower rates.
The first time I was confronted by an NHS Perspex screen I was in a wheelchair. The receptionist’s loudspeaker was therefore far above my head and I couldn’t make out a word she said. The NHS is run by people functionally equivalent to morons.
Happily have had only 2 visits to the GP during this nonsense. Even 2 weeks back had to stand 2 feet from receptionist and wait to be called. My gambit? Simply say, “I’m sorry, I’m rather deaf, I can’t hear you with your mask on”. And they slip it down.
Wouldn’t be so bad were it not for the fact that masks are not medically proven to work, and most are in fact wearing surgical splash masks, designed to make sure those working in operating theatres do not ingest bits of patient.
https://brownstone.org/articles/more-than-150-comparative-studies-and-articles-on-mask-ineffectiveness-and-harms/
That’s being very rude about morons
“We urge the NHS to uphold the principle of evidence-based medicine in its policies and practices. We also remind the CEOs that NHS staff are required to uphold the core principles of the NHS Constitution, medical ethics and professional codes of practice, including the right to informed consent. Denying staff, patients and visitors the right to decline a medical intervention (a face mask) without coercion, penalty or restriction is in breach of these principles and codes.”
Surely some jest or April Fool here? There isn’t a cat in Hell’s chance of any of these things being observed.
Sunk without trace, and presumed lost and unsalvageable:-
The good Doctor and her organisation doubtless mean well, and are to be commended for their campaigns, but I fear that they are heavily-outnumbered by the rest of the NHS; lock, stock and injecting barrel. The moment has long since gone when any of the core principles of ethical medicine were paramount in the NHS, in all its branches and manifestations. Of course, they were never of the slightest interest or relevance to the vast cadres of non-medical people, or the quangos like NHS Providers and the other parasitic organisations that prey upon the public purse via the NHS, and it is these that seem to determine “policy without ethics”.
The whole thing is beyond redemption.
Thank you for this important work Elizabeth – you have been a giant throughout this entire episode and many in this country are in your debt.
I posted the following yesterday, here: https://dailysceptic.org/2022/05/25/government-fear-propaganda-made-covid-worse-says-report/#comment-810067
Thanks to all who replied.
I should have added yesterday that the above bulletin was sent to staff at the UCLH Admin block in Euston. This admin block is not even part of the main hospital and is attached ‘physically’ in no way; in fact, it’s on the opposite side of the Euston Road.
If they are not going to drop restrictions for the staff who aren’t even in the hospital, there is no chance of them dropping them for patients.
As I said yesterday… TWATS!
EVERYTHING this bunch of losers did made matters worse. And then they compounded it by making clear that despite having terrified a huge chunk of the country with Covid, that they were not in the slightest worried about catching it.
Neither was I, but that’s not the point. Johnson needs to go, ASAP. And no, I have no idea of a replacement. But Bunter has to go.
TWATS
Total Worrywarts And Timorously Stupid?
We understand some colleagues may feel anxious about the change to social distancing. If you would prefer to continue to maintain a distance of 2 metres and/or wear a mask at your desk, your decision will be respected.
Naturally makes one think of
A substantial number of people still do not feel sufficiently personally threatened; […]
The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent, using hard-hitting emotional messaging.
[Options for increasing adherence to social distancing measures, p. 1]
One should note that this implies that the author(s) don’t believe that there is actually any threat the complacent people could succumb to. Otherwise, tricking them into believing that there was obviously wouldn’t be necessary.
Someone should sue this unatural offspring of a gay marriage because he has a duty of care to keep his employees safe. And trying to frighten them as hard as possible certainly doesn’t amount to that.
The National Health Service has (with many other public sector institutions, it seems) forgotten who it SERVES…
It serves itself! There are a number of national bodies like this, which first and foremost serve their own interests. The CofE is another one.
Who on earth still expects high-quality care from the Hell Service?
Yes, I though ‘What?’ on reading that bit!
When it was first created, the National Health Service was accessible to all. That was its USP. It was never touted as “the best”. Typical Socialism.
Care and compassion. Like ‘Jenny’s’ care and compassion when she spurned the pleas of a husband desperate to be with his dying wife, and left him to to sob in the car park.
And she considered herself virtuous. And so did the foul Labour Party who cited her as an example.
May all the NHS Jennies burn in Hell, and their admirers along with them.
I didn’t read the article. Something about NHS and masks. Fine. I have an opinion. Masks are pure evil. They are the denial of the face, of the breath, of humanity itself. Masks are of the devil. If you love to wear a mask, heck, if you even wear one under duress, you are worshipping Satan. Ooooh, did I go too far?
Not nearly far enough, Dloop.
Masks freak me out. People who wear them are monsters and I want nothing to do with them.
I’m currently avoiding using the service until they remove any ‘health’ requirements.
The NHS is not fit for purpose.
Why would the NHS wish for a return to normality, when that might mean its record over the last 26 months coming under increased scrutiny?
Far better to say ‘overworked, under stress and don’t want to be infected by the public’.
Are masks no longer required by NHS from Monday? It said so on DS but I have found nothing about it anywhere else.
Well, I’ve got to go for a blood test on Tuesday so will see what it’s like. I had a genuine reason to claim an exemption under the government’s previous ‘rules’, but I’m no longer prepared to play that game. If I get asked to wear a mask, the answer will be a simple ‘no’ – I’m not justifying it.
Incidentally, has anyone else noticed a significant increase in GPs sending you for blood tests? It seems to have become the standard response to anything and everything over the past few years (assuming you can actually contact a GP, of course). Presumably it’s favoured to try to avoid actually seeing their scummy patients.
Just been announced for Wales. See link below.
Covid in Wales: Hospital mask rule ends as emergency law expires
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-61594861
At f****ing last!
Yes, and it is the medical fraternity who should, of all people understand that masking, so-called vaccination, and all the othe virtue signalling is pointless. Yet they perpetuate the facade of competence. Want a blood test? Only if you’re double vaxxed. Want to see a doctor? Let’s see you vax certificate first. This is Australia, and I’m sure it’s very similar elsewhere. How can you respect people who think that this will ‘protect’ them?
I went for a pelvic scan yesterday at our small local hospital in a rural town. As ever, it was virtually empty.
I had informed the receptionist on the phone that I did not wear masks and I had resurrected my exemption lanyard but I was still challenged and made to wait in a corridor. A man (role unclear; I assumed some sort of porter) fetched me for the scan and said, ‘You’re not wearing a mask’. I replied, ‘No; I don’t’. He reported this to the radiographer who accepted that I was exempt but then said, ‘We wear them to protect you’. I said, ‘Please don’t. I have never worried about Covid for a moment’. She looked shocked. This is the most sparsely populated county in England and virtually everyone who has died of Covid has been in a care home.
There then followed a fraught interaction in which I refused to remove my lower garments in the presence of a male and had to wait until another female could be found; it seems that a female radiographer is not allowed to be alone with another female ‘for our protection’ but women are expected to take their knickers off in front of male assistants.
The attitude of NHS staff is now blatantly hostile towards patients. This seems to be particularly the case the lower down the staff hierarchy they are and the more educated and insistent on their rights the patients are. They have been so brainwashed by the ‘clap for the NHS’ nonsense that they think they are gods. A complete culture change is required.
The sainted NHS could do with a good dose of the clap
Very well said, as someone who has a 90+ year old relative in hospital—stressful enough-the stress of dealing with the rules and regulations of the hospital is nearly unbearable—particularly if ,like my wife and I, you are defying them. btw ,we shared a platform in Lisburn-I spoke re schools and children.
The majority of NHS staff will find it impossible to relinquish the “Skivers Charter” of Covid-1984.
I visited our Dentist yesterday. The entrance was, as usual, locked. I pressed the bell. ” Have you got a mask?” came the voice from the speaker by the door.” Please put it on”. I walked into a totally empty waiting room, the receptionists, masked up, sitting behind perspex, asked me to take a seat. I made a move to remove my coat and hang it up on the nearby pegs. “Don’t leave your coat there!” On entering the treatment room, to be “greeted” by a dentist dressed in enough PPE to perform a heart by-pass, I was told to deposit coat and bag in a ‘unibox’ on the floor. On returning to Reception to make my next appointment I had to stand inside the square carefully painted on the floor.
When will this nonsense ever end?
Specsavers is still pulling the same crap too. I complained in person then via email. Got the expected copy & paste reply about “safety of our staff and customers” etc. Last time I’ll ever go there. Idiots.
Oops I clicked on “thumbs up” and then also accidentally on “thumbs down” but it doesn’t seem to have registered that thank goodness. Was going to say I am well overdue for an eye test (at Specsavers) and I probably really do need stronger glasses, but I have been concerned about going for precisely the reasons you have said. I’ve been thinking I’ll just go and buy some of those reading glasses you can get in various shops. Undoubtedly cheaper too.
I’ve just posted this on Facebook. It was in response to a Stand in the Park post about finding an alternative sort of practitioner.
” I have actually just this week taken myself off my doctor’s/surgery’s list. I’d been thinking about it for a while, wrote the letter and then let it sit around while I thought some more. Things kept popping up that made me think it was the right thing to do, so I went ahead and took the letter in to my surgery. The last time I went was last year to pick up a fit note for my husband, who had broken his collar bone, and that was bad enough – masks on everyone of course (except me), door to the surgery locked and you had to ring a bell and then someone came to speak to you. Chairs removed from the foyer waiting area. I have felt for a long time that I never wanted to visit a “normal” doctor again, let alone a hospital. When I took the letter in this week, the first thing that hit me was the big notice on the door saying you’ve got to wear a mask. A lady in a wheelchair was sat just inside, masked, and anyone else I saw was masked. You can now walk in to the surgery but there are hardly any chairs in the waiting room. The receptionist, when she finally deigned to speak to me, had a mask over one ear, which she then put over her other ear while telling me I had to wear a mask. I said – “well this is the last time I’ll be coming in and I just wanted to hand in this letter. And I’m exempt anyway.” Then she asked if it needed a reply and I said yes. Then she asked if it was a letter wanting a telephone appointment, and I said no but it did need a reply. I felt like she was wanting me to tell her what it was about but I wasn’t going to. Then I smiled (genuinely as I didn’t want to be antagonistic), said thank you and left. I got home about 4 hours later and it wasn’t long before I got a phone call from the practice manager wanting to chat to me about it. She’d even tried to ring me earlier so the doctor must have read it pretty quick. She was very “nice” about the whole thing, though rather patronising, sounding concerned for my health, but I thought – “I won’t be persuaded to change my mind”. I don’t trust their “niceness”. I just think they wanted to keep me on their books and get paid for having me there! I walked away with a great feeling of relief that I’d done it!”
The NHS is a public service. There to serve the public. Simple. To help us have the healthies lives possible.
We so NOT exist to save the NHS
SAJ can make (force) them to co-operate if he wants. I suggest he stops messing about and sorts it. He can do it with a stroke of his pen.
Stop pissing about SAJ, and get it done.