Protect the NHS

Now give staff safety equipment

THE FAR-SIGHTEDNESS of Danny Boyle’s tribute to the NHS in the opening ceremony of the London Olympics in 2012 was evidenced by the overwhelming number of people who showed their support for the health heroes, and key workers, who continue to go the extra mile on the nation’s behalf.

For the second successive Thursday, a country fatigued by coronavirus – and its horrendous impact on every section of society – clapped, cheered and took part in spontaneous musical tributes from their doorsteps, and windows, to express their gratitude.

As Yorkshire junior doctor David Smith wrote so eloquently in this newspaper yesterday, these gestures – and acts of kindness in supermarkets and so on – do make a difference to the morale of those NHS workers, carers and others facing the gravest public health crisis of their careers.

But what will really help medics, and emergency workers, is the provision of adequate PPE screening equipment – they have already waited far too long for face masks and so on – and the acceleration of the screening of NHS staff, hospital patients and the wider population for this contagious virus.

A week after

Boris Johnson made pronouncements to this effect before his own period of enforced self-isolation, the public and private sector now need to come together, like never before, to address these fundamental failings before more lives are put at risk. It is already a matter of life and death. But, if manufacturers can come to the rescue, the NHS will then have good reason – in time – to reciprocate the applause that rang out last night across the county.