For some time now, the Smile Free team have been highlighting the reality of face mask coercion varying from hospital to hospital, with whether you have to wear one or not depending entirely on the people setting the rules locally. COVID-19 infection rates are irrelevant: it all comes down to the views of individuals who have managed to get their hands on the levers of power. For those folk who are true believers in ‘The Science’, masks were – and are – a critically important weapon in the arsenal of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Blind to the realities of historical precedent, objective evidence and common sense, masks ‘work’, they claim, and we all have to get with the programme and strap them on.
Unlike the rest of the post-COVID-19 world where we are ‘learning to live’ with the respiratory infection, in some parts of the NHS masks are still required. Notwithstanding the directives issued from the very top of the Health Service to ‘step down’ COVID-19 measures, in some healthcare settings, often driven by the head of an individual trust’s infection prevention and control (IPC) function, what are still in effect mask mandates have not gone away. How individual trusts can maintain these controls is to be found buried in the small print of the reissued National Infection Prevention and Control manual (p.36) where a get-out clause comes down to those weasel words beloved by Health and Safety bureaucrats, ‘local risk assessment’. In short, if the head of IPC in Trust A wants to dispense with masks, he or she can; if the head of Trust B’s IPC wants to keep them, then they can be kept.
If this sounds a bit bonkers, well, that’s because it is. In a world where we’ve moved on from the constant news-bombing of stats for positive test ‘cases’, hospitalisations and deaths with COVID-19, we still can find ourselves being told that we are ‘expected’ to wear a mask. Why? Just because one person, with the lucky position from which to exercise their authority and masking peccadillos, says so.
So how does this random exercise in magical thinking show itself in its least rational light? When we compare health settings from neighbouring trusts. Recently, I needed to attend the Essex Cardiothoracic Centre for an outpatient procedure. Based at Basildon University Hospital, all cardio-related procedures undertaken in Essex have been consolidated at the Centre. Which means that patients come from across the entire county, from different areas served by different trusts.
Part of the Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust (MSEFT), the trust’s website advises service-users and visitors that “there is no longer the need to wear masks” in any of their health settings. And when looking at the website overall, one is struck by the absence of any images in which people, be they staff, patients or visitors, are wearing a face covering. The Cardiothoracic Centre’s website goes even further, making no mention of masks whatsoever. Indeed, throughout my time at the Centre I saw not one single mask being worn; not in the general areas, the ward or even the operating theatre in which my procedure was done. Everything was normal, so much so that it was only after I got home that I realised what I had experienced. Saying it was ‘blissful’ didn’t do my feelings justice.
In contrast, just 40 miles away from Basildon, in Colchester General Hospital, things are different. Part of the East Suffolk and North Essex NHS Foundation Trust (ESNEFT), the spectre of face masks continues to lurk ominously. The home page of the parent trust’s website, on the frame advertising ‘Latest Visiting Information’, continues to display a prominent photo of a masked nurse. Regarding guidance for visiting the hospital, the general message is that COVID-19 is still ‘a thing’, the web page headline stating that, “We continue to care for patients with a number of transmissible infections”. Further, visitors are told that they are “required to wear surgical face masks covering their nose and mouth where there is a high-risk of transmission of contagious respiratory infection”. In addition to a list of specific conditions and scenarios in which masks should be worn, the instructions are that those attending A&E will be “asked to wear a surgical mask”. Masks are available at all hospital entrances or by asking staff for one.
As if these general diktats weren’t enough, in communications with patients ESNEFT exposes an even darker core to its mask mania. Ahead of an outpatient appointment – scheduled for July18th(!) – a friend received a standard letter from it, which stated:
The staff caring for you will be using personal protective equipment such as face masks, gloves and aprons…. Please change your face mask/covering on arrival to a new surgical face mask provided at our entrances.
Should we be surprised that, even when an adjacent trust takes a sensible and relaxed view of masking, ESNEFT ignores directives coming from the very top of the management tree and deploys a stronger message about masking? Not really. As a previous Smile Free investigation into ESNEFT revealed, the fearful and authoritarian inclinations of ESNEFT management have been a feature of its IPC protocols. The man behind the mask, so to speak, is Chief Nurse and Director of IPC Dr. Giles Thorpe, pictured below in his mask and visor, and a committed devotee of covering one’s face.
Why then are people like Dr. Thorpe so evangelical about masks? What special insights do they possess that allows them to impose different rules than those in similar positions of authority and qualification just a few miles down the road? (One of MSEFT’s hospitals, Braintree, is just 23 miles from Colchester General.) After all, it can’t be that COVID-19 threat levels are different between bordering neighbourhoods and in such close proximity. Nor can it be that ‘the Science’ of masking is different between these adjacent places. So, what is it?
Perhaps we can find some clues to this riddle when we look at another neighbouring trust, Norwich and North Norfolk University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (NNUH). Here we find the Integrated Care System within which NNUH sits has, in line with national NHS guidance, determined that “individual healthcare providers” can “decide upon their own guidelines regarding mask use, based on the level of risk in their local setting” (emphasis mine). Based on these parameters NNUH has decided to go further than ESNEFT – but not as far as MSEFT – throw caution to the wind and ‘relax’ the mask measures so that, “instead of face masks being universally worn, they will be required in certain settings based on the local risk assessments”, for example if a person has “suspected or confirmed COVID-19”. The telling part of its announcement appears at the end of the press release when NNUH’s Chief Nurse and Director of IPC offers these soothing words to those who use its services:
We understand that after three years of mask wearing there will be some anxiety and we want to reassure staff, patients, carers and visitors that masks will still be available at our hospitals for those who wish to wear one.
And here we have it, an admission that the population’s mental health and acuity has been damaged by the ceaseless propaganda surrounding masks, in some cases beyond repair. Without a candid and truthful re-evaluation of the usefulness of masks, and absent clear and unambiguous instructions from the top of the NHS, there will always be a desire amongst mask obsessives to cling on to the false idea that masks work.
The Smile Free campaign does not accept we should be subject to interminable masking based on the arbitrary decisions of local healthcare managers, and we invite you to sign our Open Letter to NHS leaders, calling on them to issue new guidance that explicitly discourages this harmful practice.
Paul Stevens is a member of Smile Free which campaigns for the end of mask mandates and masking.
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https://www.conservativewoman.co.uk/the-new-skycovion-vaccine-more-questions-for-mhra-to-answer/
Time to end the damned “vaccine” lottery.
June Raine has “enabled” Billy’s new Korean release and for which there is NO safety data whatsoever as Professor Norman Fenton makes clear in this short but scathing article.
Well, I never wore one at all. Over the last few years, I can remember a couple of occasions where they were a bit grumpy about it. One was a car dealer/repair place where I was dropping in one for maintenance. There I just declared exemption, which made her shut up and get on with the job. Another was in an A&E department where I was being dealt with on account of a minor injury. No real comment re the fact that I didn’t wear one there. The third was an optician that I used for a twice yearly/new pair of specs. Can’t remember exactly what I said, but he did the job, and the assistant that did most of the close up face to face work for a new set was quite relaxed about it.
In the early days, the Gov was quite clever, by publishing all the bumf, including properly designed badges and the like, that one could download and print. And of course they were punctilious about using the term “face cover” (not mask). Not only that, the junk that retailers sold mostly had tiny labels on the back (that most would not read) that declared that they were NOT medical masks at all; I think this was done to avoid the risk of prosecution under trading standards. They couldn’t prove that they did any good, but on the other hand they could say that we never said that did anyway from a physical/biological perspective.
I have never worn a mask and I won’t be starting now.
I had some real blazing arguments with the masktards and funnily enough they were all NHS people.
Funny that.
Masks were gift to those who crave bossing others around and they won’t let go easily.
It’s that simple. No need to consider what possible good faith reasons there might be. There are none. It’s literally just a way to satisfy the will to power of some people
I will never wear one of the bloody things – vile symbols of fear, control and compliance.
A couple of months ago my local GP surgery was once again requiring masks for those attending – I just refused. Nothing they could do about it.
Sick to death of talking about the sodding things so I’m going to do a dump. On topic for once though.
See how Chile are blatantly ignoring all the scientific evidence and instead choosing to make the children suffer. I really hope adults massively oppose this insanity if they value their kids’ welfare over there.
”Chile, June 2023: The use of face masks for children aged >5y is again compulsory, due to an outbreak of syncytial virus (common cold in most cases). Never before have common colds been fought with “obligatory use of masks”, much less so for children.”
https://twitter.com/ChGefaell/status/1669959007874830336
Remember how those at number 10 Downing Street took the piss throughout? While people were being denied treatment or even admittance to a healthcare setting if they didn’t conform to the pantomime and don the wretched cult talisman. Or being arrested for sitting on a park bench? More evidence 99.999% of politicians hold the public in total contempt.
”10 Downing Street knew there was no need for masks or social distancing as it was ‘unscientific’ yet they went ahead with the theatre anyway!
Why is this not the NUMBER 1 story?
Why are Vallance and Whitty not arrested immediately?”
https://twitter.com/markmaycot/status/1669758418712768527
”Rules For Thee But Not For Me” The U.S Edition ( but with dishonorable mentions for Johnson and Turdeau ). Contempt and hypocrisy all the way…because ”deadly pandemic”! ( 4min vid )
https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/flashback-friday-one-law-for-thee
Thanks Mogs
You need to ask for the leaflet about masking in a different format. Printed on softer paper for you to use after your dump.
The lefty NHS will never end their deluded demand for masks..
Especially the obese 25%, who out of pure selfishness demand everyone wears a mask to “protect” themselves, being vulnerable to a Respiratory virus…
Interesting article from 2017… Some perspective… How many obese were sent hone on full pay…
Who would employ people who are not capable of carrying out their job??
Only your wonderful NHS…
https://www.nursingtimes.net/news/research-and-innovation/deeply-worrying-research-suggests-25-of-nurses-in-england-are-obese-05-12-2017/
More than one in four nurses in England is obese, according to a new study, which warns this could hamper their ability to deliver safe and effective care.
Meanwhile levels of obesity among health and care support staff are even higher, suggests the research published in BMJ Open, which calls on the NHS to take urgent action to tackle the problem and “put its own house in order”.
In the Royal Free hospital in London there is a vending machine outside the operating theatres for use by staff only… A Mars a Day…
Many moons ago – decades indeed – a hospital was granted a sum of money – from where, I can’t remember- to be used to rewards its staff. A decision was made to give each member of staff a…mars bar! Staff had to go to the staff restaurant to collect and ‘sign for’ receipt of their reward.
I kid you not!
Pretty sure that when I die, many decades from now, those dealing with my corpse will find my exemption badge still sitting in one of my pockets. Highly effective at preventing one of the more unpleasant aspect of the pandemic – people asking where my mask is.
Recently collecting an online order from Boots (the chemist) I was pleasantly surprised to see they have now finally removed all the useless Perspex barriers at the tills and prescription dispensary.
They were still up I’m sure, when I last went in about 3 – 4 months ago. It was always awkward if the items ordered were in a larger cardboard box, as the box wouldn’t fit through the cut out window in the Perspex and the staff had to walk about 3 or 4 steps to their side to hand over the box in the non-barriered area
They are only about 3 years late in removing them – they should never have been installed in the first place.