2 weeks Ago By Jonathan Walker
The NHS has been urged to step up health services for its own staff amid fears that many are suffering post-traumatic stress disorder following their experiences during the Covid pandemic. Health minister Stephen Kinnock is to investigate, following warnings that medical workers are suffering “flashbacks” but have received no support. One in 20 GPs are using a specialist service designed to help the NHS staff with mental health and addiction issues.
The alarm was raised by Labour MP Peter Prinsley, a former consultant surgeon at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital, who that warned doctors need help. He highlighted the case of a former medical student “who described the terrible flashbacks and post-traumatic stress disorder of the young clinical intensive therapy unit staff who witnessed 40 or 50 Covid admissions die at a hospital in Yorkshire, and the complete lack of support they received". He added: “Many are reluctant to seek help and do not know where to turn.
“Itinerant junior doctors not registered with GPs are known to self-medicate. We simply cannot leave them on their own.” A Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said: “NHS staff have been overworked for years leaving many of them burnt out and demoralised and the pandemic only made this worse.
“Through our investment and reforms, we are turning the NHS around, making it a great place to work so staff can provide top quality service for their patients. “NHS England is currently reviewing mental health support, and we will set out our plans to grow and support the NHS workforce when we publish our refreshed long-term workforce plan in summer.” Overstretched hospitals faced a massive influx of patients at the height of the first wave of the Covid pandemic in 2020, with an average of 1,500 admissions every day.
Staff were asked to work longer hours to cover for colleagues who had contracted the virus, and retired NHS staff were asked to return. A report by the British Medical Association said: “The requirements of the pandemic had a significant negative impact on the wellbeing and working lives of doctors, both physically and psychologically.” NHS Practitioner Health, set up to treat health and social care professionals with mental health and addiction problems, served 6,584 patients last year, up from 1,186 in the 12 months to April 2019.
Nine out of 10 patients are doctors, and other patients include nurses. The most common symptom causing patients to seek help is anxiety and the service said in its annual report: “This has consistently been the dominant reason with heightened anxiety during the pandemic, which has not abated.” An anonymous survey of NHS staff conducted by the health service found four in 10 had felt unwell due to work-related stress of a 12 month period.
One in four said they had personally experienced bullying or harassment from patients or other members of the public in the past 12 months..
