Doctors need more support to manage Covid stresses, says Bath psychologist
Medics are "exhausted" and could be left with long term mental and physical health problems without more help, we're told
Doctors are being left exhausted and at risk of burn out by the relentlessness of the Covid pandemic.
Research by psychologists from the University of Bath has found doctors urgently need better support, including more time to rest and to talk about the stresses of the job.
We've spoken to doctor Jo Daniels who's a senior lecturer in clinical psychology at the university.
"What we're seeing now is that the problem really hasn't gone away," she told us.
"Although we're not seeing it reported in the media, we're hearing that actually doctors on the frontline are exhausted.
"They've had to work through two pandemics with another approaching, without rest or recuperation and they're at really low reserves now and really very much struggling to work as the pandemic continues."
On Friday (28 October) Bath's Royal United Hospital shared a tweet urging people not to attend the accident and emergency department unless in a genuine emergency.
At the time the Trust said 54 people were being treated with confirmed or suspected coronavirus.
"What we're hearing a lot about is there is no time to rest and digest, there's no space to talk, there's no space to make sense of some of the really difficult experiences that they're seeing.
"So it's very much working on the frontline seeing case after case after case, no time to process those difficulties and some of the difficulties and dilemmas that they're faced with on the front line."
Dr Daniels is using her research to create a form of guidebook for NHS Trusts on how they can better support their staff.
"What we need to think about is the long term impact here," she said.
"We know that doctors are struggling with their mental health, we also know that there's a huge amount of stigma in the medical profession around mental health, so there's a lot that needs to be done around culture change.
"But if we don't do something now, what we're going to see is we're going to have less and less doctors, we're going to have higher rates of long term mental health (problems), higher rates of physical health problems in the work force as well and we're going to be struggling to retain those members of staff that are so important to us right now."
Dr Daniels is calling for better psychological support for medics, including basic things like better access to personal protective equipment, spaces to rest and better shift patterns to allow doctors to recover.
"What we're talking about specifically is...you can have psychological support and care at a level with your peers.
"We have interventions and support we can provide, where people can talk to their peers in a more formal way to be able to make sense of some of the difficult events or situations that they've faced.
"But really I'm talking more about psychological interventions that have an evidence base such as cognitive behaviour therapy.
"Those kind of interventions are provided by specialists such as clinical psychologists, developing and delivering interventions for things like post traumatic stress disorder which we know there is a high degree of on the front line...and also things like anxiety and depression."
The guide being put together will be based on interviews with frontline doctors about how they have managed the pandemic.
"We've been working with doctors and experts in the field of trauma and wellbeing to develop a model of psychological care for frontline doctors and healthcare workers, to outline the stages which people should go through when they're struggling with their mental health and how services and the NHS can support them to access the right help at the right time."