The longer the wait for PPE guidance, the greater the urgency

The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:

"It is good that further guidance will be issued shortly to address staff concerns over the use of personal protective equipment (PPE).

"The longer the wait, the more urgent the situation becomes.

"It is trusts’ absolute priority to ensure frontline staff have complete confidence in the equipment they work with.

"It has become clear that for many, that is not the case, even though in some areas the current guidance is more, rather than less, stringent than the WHO recommendations.

"It is vital that national NHS leaders explain clearly what equipment should be used when, why this guidance can be trusted and there are clear explanations of why guidance has changed and how it aligns with WHO guidance.  

"That will then allow trust leaders to reassure their staff and support them to use the right equipment is used in the right circumstances, helping guarantee security of supply."

Increased testing is welcome but we still need clarity

The deputy chief executive of NHS Providers, Saffron Cordery, said:

"It’s encouraging to hear that staff testing for COVID-19 will be rapidly scaled up.

"We have been pushing hard for this because we know how important it is for trusts and frontline staff.

"However trust leaders have been telling us today that they still don’t have any more details, beyond yesterday’s top level announcement, of what is going to happen to staff testing in their particular organisations when.

"So we are repeating our call for as much clarity as possible on the speed and scale of this acceleration in testing."

A very warm welcome to returning NHS workers

The chief executive of NHS Providers, Chris Hopson, said:

"It is great to see that the first, recently retired, returning NHS workers will start work today.

"As of yesterday nearly 17,000 had responded to the call – offering fantastic additional experience and skills for the NHS workforce.

"Trust leaders tell us this is much needed and can’t come soon enough given the understandable absence rates – due to illness and self isolation - they are currently experiencing.

"National NHS leaders report that around a third of returning staff will work on NHS 111 and the two-thirds who are happy to undertake direct patient care will start being allocated to trusts shortly.

"Their contribution is most welcome."

Wrong to decry NHS preparations for COVID-19 

Responding to the Lancet editorial, Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers, said:

"Trust CEOs have told us overnight that they are disappointed that all the work they and frontline staff have done over the last eight weeks to prepare for coronavirus is being described as 'chaos and panic'.

"Trusts have worked hand in glove with national NHS leaders to discharge medically fit patients, expand critical care capacity, train extra staff to provide much needed ventilation support, postpone routine planned care and redesign clinical pathways. This has all been done in record time.

"As a result, the NHS has created 33,000 hospital beds to treat coronavirus patients. That scale of change, at that pace, has never been achieved before in the NHS’s 72 year history. It’s an extraordinary achievement, entirely due to well co-ordinated superhuman effort from frontline NHS staff across every single NHS hospital, community, mental health and ambulance trust.

"Given the unprecedented scale of the challenge the NHS faces, there will be problems and gaps on the way. Trust leaders know it’s their job to deal with those as best they can, with the resources they have available.

 "We need to ignore the siren voices seeking to divert attention from the task at hand. The time for the debate about what could have been done better and why is for later, not now."