There follows a guest post by an NHS GP.
Seeing the crowds of people celebrating the jubilee weekend you would be forgiven for thinking that the country has moved on from Covid and the associated ‘corona-panic. That is unless you step inside an NHS facility and are met with a sea of masked faces. But why should this still be? On May 27th the infection prevention and control guidance for primary and community healthcare providers was quietly withdrawn. This was followed up by an open letter to NHS trusts and CCG’s on June 1st advising that “health and care staff are in general not required to wear facemasks” and that “patients are not required to wear a facemask unless this is a personal preference”.
Whilst some NHS trusts have communicated this change to their staff and patients, others seem to be deliberately keeping quiet on the matter. The Medical Director of my local CCG has diligently communicated all previous updates since the start of the pandemic and yet this particular update seems to have slipped under his radar and I am still waiting for it to be included in his regular briefing. I know from colleagues working in secondary care that the same is true for some hospital trusts as well. Why does the NHS persist in the theatre of mask wearing when the evidence is overwhelming that they do not prevent viral transmission but are associated with numerous harms? Perhaps now that the change in guidance is being reported by mainstream news outlets the tide may start to turn.
My advice to patients or visitors to NHS facilities would be to smile – it has been too long without that very human interaction.
Stop Press: A number of NHS trusts are not simply failing to pass on this new guidance, but actively insisting that patients keep wearing masks despite the instructions to drop the rules. The Telegraph has more.
National coronavirus guidance which insisted on face coverings has now been scrapped, with health officials leaving it to local organisations to draft their own policies.
However, several hospitals have called on patients and staff to continue to wear masks and face coverings on their sites.
In a letter to all local health bodies, NHS England highlighted new infection control guidance set out by the UK Health Security Agency.
Sajid Javid, the Health Secretary, has repeatedly called on NHS trusts to drop restrictions in hospitals which are limiting operational capacity. Last month, he threatened to name and shame hospitals that do not lift social distancing measures and restrictions on visitors.
A letter from health chiefs said that patients visiting accident and emergency (A&E) departments, hospital outpatient appointments and GP surgeries no longer needed to wear masks “unless this is a personal preference”.
Hospitals have now begun issuing guidance for their local communities, with a number saying they intend to keep insisting on people wearing masks.
The Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS trust issued a notice to patients and staff saying: “We are still asking patients, visitors, staff and anyone working at one of our hospital or community sites to continue to wear a mask, gel hands and social distance while in our buildings despite the lifting of national restrictions.“This is to keep vulnerable people as safe as possible.”
Worth reading in full.
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All of the sceptics here were insisting the same from the day the ridiculous mask mandates were announced. It was/is obviously all just behavioural psychology.
My vote would be for a combination of safety behaviour by mysophobes and commercial interests. After all, the most common mask are nominally one-way, hence, one can sell a real lot of them when they’re mandated.
I’d be very nervous about taking medical advice from any professional who insisted on masking. If they’re ignorant enough to believe a flimsy bit of plastic tat can stop infection, what else are they wrong about?
I could not agree more CG.
As I have posted in the past there can be no greater badge of ignorance than being confronted by a so-called health care professional wearing a mask. In my opinion it undermines the industry, their “profession”, their colleagues, their understanding of medicine and science in general and it also suggests an inability to keep personal professional competence up-to-date and that is seriously worrying.
Science is for me a bit of a black hole. It bored me at school and the graphs and charts stuff presented by our former member SW left me dry – I just skipped them and waited for Kate to put them in to words. However, modern medicine is allegedly rooted in science, not that we would know it from visiting our GP surgeries and A & E clinics which these days tend to resemble a modern interpretation of voodoo churches.
“I’m a doctor me, look I’ve got a mask on. Where’s yours?”
I never, ever use them. DOCTOR!
With respect graphs and charts: it very much depends on how your mind works. For some people a graph is more informative than a 1000 words, for others they’re incomprehensible. Neither understanding more correct than the other, just different.
FL, I was not in any way criticising graphs and charts. I make it clear that when they were posted I skipped them and relied on others to provide the interpretation.
I am a lateral thinker so find the logical/ critical mode difficult. It is just the way my brain works.
Really recommend this weeks Dark Horse podcast, where they’re talking about whether we now live in a scientific Dark Age. One of the things they talk about is over-specialisation which may have made everyone stupid! Nobody is able to get an overview of any topic because everyone is so focused on their one particular specialism. May account for why we’ve seen supposed scientists support and repeat ridiculous covid nonsense and ignore the bigger picture…
Thanks CG. I will have s look.
Any chance of a link,?
This has always been the case in the scientific community. The higher your level of qualification, the narrower your field of specialisation. Taking in the bigger picture works against your climb up the greasy pole. As an individual with a low level BSc in General Science I have worked alongside so many PhD types who can hardly be trusted to buy a bag of sweets from the corner shop. Think of Ferguson as the perfect example of the species.
And I never said that you were criticising graphs and charts. Crossed wires I think.
Ok.
Actually, it very much depends on the graph itself. Just like a text, it can either be designed to be baffling and incomprehensible or simple and clear. The former is usually a sign of an (invalid) argument from authority in disguise (I understand this byzantine stuff and you don’t, therefore, you better listen to what I tell you!).
Modern medicine is rooted in Rockerfeller pharma profiteering….
I miss SW’s graphs – a bit of a geek like that 🙂
Interestingly I actually received a message from my GP yesterday that they continue to mandate Facemasks in their surgery.
Push back and ask them to provide the risk/benefit evidence – asked head nurse yesterday whilst at an appointment and it boiled down to there being no medical evidence for it only that the Trust their clinic rents space from insists on it…
Push back and ask them to provide the risk/benefit evidence
Please don’t. The nice thing about statistics is that everybody has one to prove that he’s right, regardless of what he claims to be right about. Just tell the members of the Breath is death! –faction that their paranoid delusions are pretty stale by now and ignore them. It’s up to them to avoid contact with other human beings if they’re afraid of it.
Just ignore.
The pressure to comply at these healthcare settings 😤
So many do not know there is no legal basis on which to insist on these measures – most are unaware how to push back.
The NHS Constitution allows that patients (and those supporting them e.g family member/visitor) be given information about tests and treatment options available and their risks and benefits – that includes medical interventions such as masking, testing and vaccination.
So far when asked at our appointments no information of the risks associated with testing, masking and vaccination has been provided – all hospitals, GP surgeries and dental practices have backed down and provided our treatment.
Inflation is through the roof.
The £100 tank of petrol is here, but it is entirely due to the regime pursuing ‘net zero’, lockdowns and sanctions on Russia that have backfired.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjlqKqRRpBE
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These cars that cost £100 to fill the tank must have bloomin’ big tanks. I have a medium sized saloon and it costs £50 to fill it (and gives a range of about 450 miles). All the small runarounds are not going to cost anywhere near £100 to fill. If, on the other hand, you’ve got a 4×4 gas guzzler, well I’ve no sympathy. I live near a primary school and every other vehicle is a Range Rover or Discovery – god forbid the kids should have to travel in a Fiesta or similar!
Your car must have a very small tank then. I’ve had fifty cars over the years including 3 Renault clios and a Honda civic. These had “small” 42 litre tanks which at today’s prices would cost £80 to fill. My medium sized saloons had 55 litre tanks so around £100 to fill.
The hospitals seem to be removing all the mask signage but everybody still assumes they are needed. On Monday, for some blood tests, I was the only one bare faced, not even a murmur from anybody. Yesterday I was asked twice by the receptionists if I had a mask, ‘exempt, thankyou’ was accepted with a smile and one even lowered her mask when it was clear I couldn’t hear her. I think they realise they are not now required but still going through the motions regardless.
Insofar Xisident Pres and his associated organizations, eg, the WHO, are concerned, The pandemic [that never was] is far from over !!!! Practically, this means as much pandemic signalling as is feasible must be retained in the hope of better times in future, eg BIG! COVID! WAVE! IN! ISRAEL!! (fer crissake, FOAD)
“This is to keep vulnerable people as safe as possible.”
Horses arses.
Vulnerable people?? Surely they were all removed two years ago?