A new university term is upon us, and for at least one day a week up until Christmas I will be in my office on campus and doing some face-to-face teaching for the first time since March 2020! I must tell you that I am excited and apprehensive in equal measure.
For many of you in clinical practice, although you have not stopped face-to-face contact, it has not been the same as it has been previously, and many patients have found the pandemic system confusing and worrying. It has been very distressing to read in the media about attitudes and attacks on our colleagues in primary care. You may have read on social media too about how primary care staff, especially front-line reception staff, have been subject to threats and abuse. This caused many NHS commentators and NHS professionals to be worried about the safety of front-line staff. This came to a head in mid-September when it was revealed there had been an attack on four members of staff in a health centre in greater Manchester resulting in injury. This was widely reported here where I live in the local media outlet, the Manchester Evening News (Wilkinson, 2021), but from what I have been able to see has received less attention in the national press. Two of those staff who were attacked, including a GP, required hospitalisation for head injuries and lacerations. It was revealed that a man was arrested in relation to the attack. This was indeed, to very many, a shocking incident and unconfirmed reports suggest it was prompted by the media attention that primary care needed to re-open and begin seeing patients.
As many of you will be very aware, primary care has never stopped seeing patients, but the blended approach of telephone triage, telephone consultations and face-to-face consultations has had to be in place to manage safety and workload. All of us want things to go back to normal but the post-pandemic face of healthcare will look different to pre-pandemic practice. It is important how this is communicated to patients to prevent fear and animosity. All our workloads have increased or changed. We know that waiting list sizes have swelled due to emergency pandemic care being prioritised over routine surgical and medical appointments. We know we need to work to reduce waiting times and manage long term and acute non-COVID conditions. The NHS faces a tough few years and the way things progress needs to be well managed and communicated to avoid needless media speculation and abuse.
I stand with you my frontline colleagues in your amazing effort pre-, ante- and post-pandemic (although I'm not sure we are post-pandemic yet) and the fantastic clinical work you all do.
We know that attacks on NHS and ambulance staff are not new, but we need to work together, and rely on our government and national media to ensure these do not increase in nature and severity because of the pandemic and inappropriate or inaccurate reporting.
Stay safe and well everyone.