Dr Rosena Allin - Khan, shadow health minister and A&E doctor has escalated to government the need for robust mental health support for healthcare professionals.

The COVID - 19 crisis has highlighted issues that the nursing profession has been experiencing for many years... 

- lack of understanding of impact of healthcare work 

- vulnerability of our colleagues

- little safeguarding of our workforce

We support the issues that Dr Khan has raised and mirror what she says. However we feel the issues raised  needs to go further ...

How can nurses and midwives be expected to be open and honest when they are struggling without reassurance that they won't lose their jobs during the process of doing so. Many tell us that they fear being honest incase they will be referred to the Nursing and Midwifery Council on health grounds. Our nurses and midwives are people too - they are not super human as is so often portrayed.

The current outpouring of support from the public is humbling but may be counter productive in so far as putting too much pressure on our colleagues to say "I'm not ok"