Covid-19 inquiry report – our response
“We coped, but only just” This is the key message of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry which released its report into the impact of the pandemic on healthcare systems earlier today. As anaesthetists and intensivists, our members know this first-hand.
The report acknowledges several vital truths about the state of hospitals that we made forcefully to the Chair, Baroness Hallett, during our role as core participants in the Inquiry.
- Healthcare systems “teetered on the brink of collapse and only coped thanks to the almost superhuman efforts of healthcare workers and all the staff who support them.”
- “… the UK entered the Covid-19 pandemic with a low number of hospital beds and high bed occupancy, as well as significant shortages of healthcare workers to care for the patients in those beds. This included intensive care (also referred to as critical care)”
- “Urgent measures were therefore needed to increase existing hospital capacity and to redeploy existing staff to ensure that the anticipated influx of Covid-19 patients could be cared for.”
- “Some healthcare workers, for example anaesthetists, had more easily transferable skills and so were better suited to assist patients needing critical care.”
- “Redeployment of staff bolstered the number of people working in critical care but at the expense of other areas of healthcare.”
- “The redeployment of anaesthetists and other operating theatre staff affected the restoration of elective surgery, cardiac care and maternity services.”
- Despite this, “The pandemic saw changes to intensive care staffing ratios which meant that specially trained critical care nurses could care for more patients than would ordinarily be the case. However, the dilution of staff ratios for intensive care came at a risk to the patients.”
- And that rectifying problems may take time “as particularly in the context of critical care where it takes years to train skilled specialist staff.” This is something that we know applies equally to anaesthetists.
It is the view of our three organisations that for future plans to be fit for purpose, governments must look at staffing, beds, and equipment – and how levels can be improved – right now. Given the lead in time to train intensivists and anaesthetists, these plans cannot be created and left in a drawer for the next pandemic. The action and preparation must start immediately. If not, any plans will be meaningless and leave UK nations no better prepared than they were in 2020.
As a first step, governments must quantify current staffing and other existing deficits that both anaesthesia and intensive care are currently facing. It must take active steps to close those gaps, to give the NHS and the patients it serves, additional staff and facilities that are so clearly needed.
We participated in the Inquiry to ensure that the experiences of our members were properly represented. They played a direct and significant role in the response to the pandemic, and it was imperative that their collective voices were heard.
Our evidence drew on extensive data and first-hand testimony gathered at the time. Much of it highlighted the extreme workloads our members faced and the traumatic nature of many of their experiences.
While we welcome the Inquiry’s recognition of the impact on our members and their colleagues, such acknowledgement does not lessen the profound and lasting effects.
We are grateful to everyone who shared their experiences with us and enabled our participation in the Inquiry.
The Association of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Anaesthetists and the Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine