Protecting frontline workers and their patients from infection

The primary role of personal protective equipment (PPE) within the healthcare environment is to either protect the patient from the health are worker or the healthcare worker from the patient. Both patients and carers can be vectors of infectious disease.

In 2016, the NHS as a whole failed a major cross-government test of its ability to handle a severe pandemic. The results of this Emergency Preparedness, Resilience and Response (EPRR) exercise, known as Exercise Cygnus, however, were not revealed to the public. The 3-day exercise looked at the impact of a pandemic influenza outbreak with a similar magnitude and death rate to the current pandemic, and the significant impact such a pandemic would have on health delivery. After the exercise, ministers were informed that it was likely the country would be quickly overwhelmed during a severe outbreak amid a shortage of critical care beds, insufficient morgue capacity and lack of PPE.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has made it clear that PPE is important in making the workplace safe and this includes providing instructions, procedures, training and supervision to encourage people to work safely and responsibly (HSE, 2018). Similarly, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the healthcare regulator for England, has developed an inspection framework setting out five domains that inspectors use to assess whether providers such as NHS trusts are safe, effective, caring, responsive to people's needs, and well led (CQC, 2018).