12:04

An internal memo from Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust on Saturday alerted staff to the current shortages of PPE gowns and listed procedures where aprons could be worn.

Under the heading ‘What’s New Today’ the trust states: “There is a low supply of fluid-repellent long sleeved gowns nationally which is beginning to affect us.”

It confirms current guidance that some procedures can be carried out with plastic aprons only.

But some frontline healthcare workers have complained that wearing aprons instead of gowns places them at risk and that nobody treating coronavirus patients should be so poorly protected.

“It doesn’t matter what ward we are working on, whether we’re in ITU or on another ward treating Covid patients we are all at risk,” said one nurse.



The nurse continued:

Patients cough and spit in our faces all the time. Wearing the same kind of aprons we’ve been wearing for years leaving our arms and other parts of us exposed does not protect us against the virus. We are told full PPE is only for ‘aerosol-generating areas’ but all healthcare workers are exposed to the risk of aerosol-generating Covid. I have resigned myself to getting the virus because I’m not adequately protected. It is difficult enough looking after Covid patients without worrying about getting infected ourselves. We say that the ITU is ‘close to heaven’ because so many people die there.

According toChinese authorities, although 1,500 healthcare workers were infected from the start of the outbreak in December, of the 42,600 healthcare staff who arrived from other parts of China to treat patients with the virus from late January until early March, none were infected because they were provided with much higher levels of PPE than the local staff fighting the outbreak in the early days were given.

An Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust spokesperson said: