Mask Mandates Return in NHS Hospitals. Here's How to Complain

The pro-mask cultists are at it again. In the height of summer, no less, three healthcare providers are trying to re-impose their own mask “requirements” (to the obvious glee of the BBC). The offending sites are Worcestershire Acute Hospitals, University Hospitals of North Midlands and Manx Care (which runs health and social care services in the Isle of Man). Clearly, the robust evidence concluding that face coverings constitute an ineffectual viral barrier and that their use is associated with a raft of harms does not deter these ideologues from salivating over the prospect of seeing, once again, human beings routinely strapping strips of plastic across their airways.

While one might dismiss these recent directives to return to routine mask-wearing as the desperate actions of a few mono-focused fanatics, there is a nightmare scenario that is more than a possibility: that we witness, once again, the contagion of safetyism spreading across our communities. Smile Free – a campaign group opposed to mask mandates – has described this alarming prospect as follows:

Today one hospital masks up. Tomorrow another. Soon we awake to find it’s all hospitals, care homes, GP practices and dentists – because who wants to be the manager “putting lives at risk”? Then there are “calls” to make this the law… talking heads on TV, articles in the press… asking why did we ever let these brilliant lifesaving masks go away, were we mad? This should have been made law permanently the first time; I blame the Tories. Keir Starmer how about you “protect the NHS”, “save lives” and put that right now? And what’s this? Since Covid is obviously a serious issue again, next the transport unions demand everyone wears masks. Airlines, obviously. Don’t forget the shops. Restaurants, of course! In fact, all workplaces – to be “safe”. Which includes schools, when you think about it – or don’t you think our teachers have a right to be safe at work, Keir?

For those of us who have retained our rational faculties and recognise the senselessness of universal face coverings in healthcare settings, how can we effectively halt the creep of this mask lunacy?

In addition to mass non-compliance – “no thank you, I don’t wear one” – another powerful way to oppose the return of mask mania is for thousands of the sane community to bombard the offending NHS Trusts with formal complaints. Hospital managers typically loathe bad publicity. Swathes of ordinary people expressing horror and dismay about the diktats emanating from a few ideologues embedded in the bowels of their infection control departments is enough to keep them awake at nights. Public pushback in volume is probably the only language they are likely to understand. And the good news is that – because these mask requirements potentially impact upon us all – complainants do not have to reside within the catchment areas of the offending hospitals.

To minimise the effort involved in making a complaint, Smile Free has helpfully provided some clear guidance and the relevant email addresses – see here. As individualised wording in a complaint will increase its power, you may wish to consider adding one or more of the following points to your submission:

There is strong evidence that community masking is both ineffective and harmful, as summarised in this comprehensive review.
Thousands of healthcare professionals have recognised the damage associated with imposing face coverings on all staff, patients and visitors in our hospitals, as indicated by this open letter to NHS Chief Executives, written in June 2022, urging them to lift the mask requirements.
While the scientific evidence is important, it is the human costs of routine masking in healthcare settings that forcefully brings home the dire consequences of this irrational practice: the exclusion of the hard-of-hearing; the re-traumatising of the historically abused; the increased risk of falls in the elderly; the exacerbation of confusion in the already confused; the aggravation of the autistic, anxious and panic-prone; the marginalisation of already stigmatised groups; and the impediment to the goal of soothing the frightened child or suicidal teenager. Faceless interactions impede the development of healing relationships. Humane healthcare, delivered with demonstrable warmth and compassion, will always be more effective than the robotic version emitted by a faceless professional hidden behind a veneer of sterility.
The current guidance from the U.K. Health Security Agency and NHS England, while broadly recommending a return to pre-Covid normality, leaves the option open for outlier hospitals to re-impose mask requirements on the basis of “local risk assessments”. Yet a series of Freedom of Information requests in 2023 have shown that local risk assessments are a very rare occurrence.
In the unlikely circumstance that a pro-mask NHS Trust claims to have completed a local risk assessment, ask whether it has included the range of physical, social and psychological harms in its evaluation – the answer will, in all likelihood, be a resounding “no”.

Arguably the most insidious of all the Covid-event restrictions, the “requirement” for routine masking must not be allowed to return to healthcare and other community settings. Shamefully, once again it is the NHS – which one might reasonably expect to be a pillar of scientific rationality – that is the main source of this ideological drive to routinely muzzle the British people. It must not be allowed to succeed.

Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist and co-founder of the Smile Free campaign opposed to mask mandates.