The Mancunian Way: The faces behind the crisis

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by BETH ABBIT - Wed Aug 3, 2022

Hello,

In the flurry of statistics and warnings about ‘major incidents’ and ‘high alerts’ that punctuate stories of our health system, it can be easy to forget the human faces behind it all.

The medics who worked all hours in the most difficult conditions during the pandemic did not get a break following the most intense moment in NHS history. Instead they ploughed on and are now battling serious bed shortages, ambulance delays and even unwelcome IT problems.

Things have taken their toll on consultant physician David Oliver, who has looked after Covid wards and patients for many months over the past two years. He has been signed off work sick and forced to stand down from his role as president of the Royal College of Physicians after finally catching Covid himself in March.

"While not sick enough to be admitted, I haven’t been right since,” he writes, in an eye-opening piece that first appeared in the British Medical Journal. “Some of my symptoms have doubtless been Covid related, but others were due to burnout, anxiety, and depression — eventually leading to my being signed off work sick in mid-May, unsure when I can return to clinical work.”

He adds: “If this has happened to me - a veteran, stress tempered NHS doctor, 33 years in the job, with no long-term conditions and previously fairly robust - then few of us are likely to be exempt from the strains of the past couple of years.”

Prof Oliver, from south Manchester, now works in the South East, but