When do you think we'll be able to stop wearing masks in work (nhs)

[Highlanders372]

Just curious to see what people think. I'm wondering if they'll ever go away, I can't imagine not wearing one now!

I think it depends on your role. I'm a paramedic and expect to be wearing a mask for medical Jobs for the rest of my career. Hopefully we will be able to stop wearing them for trauma calls at some point, particularly complex jobs like RTC as they are an added inconvenience/hazard in these situations.

Probably never. Even when covid is endemic I imagine they will be expected just for infection control from covid, flu, colds, whatever else.

I think they will remain mandatory now.
Has reduced the amount of colds and infections I’ve had so happy to keep wearing them.

I'm immunosuppressed so it's definitely a positive for me. I also quite like going to work looking like shit and not really being bothered about it!

Never.

Ugh not soon I'm afraid - so sick of wearing them for 11 hour days, and us colleagues all passed a super heavy cold onto each other despite them. We are all packed in at close quarters!

I shudder to think of how much the NHS is spending on them when they are essentially useless.

Not before the end 2024

I hope they stop one day, I have watched so many patients struggling with understanding what is being said to them by the nursing staff this week.

Not for a very long time, at least a couple more years, I think - if ever.

Not for a while I think. Maybe might be able to lose them in offices at some point next year, but for patient care I imagine they will be staying for a while yet

The powers that be ordained that in dentistry we can lose the ffp3s and gownand fallow time between “lower risk” patients last week but due to all the new variant stuff we shall see if that gets changed

@Vintagevixen

Ugh not soon I'm afraid - so sick of wearing them for 11 hour days, and us colleagues all passed a super heavy cold onto each other despite them. We are all packed in at close quarters!

I shudder to think of how much the NHS is spending on them when they are essentially useless.

But they’re not essentially useless so there goes that strange point.

I've had no sick leave in two years, and I've had no periods of soldiering on when I've felt awful and my work was subpar. I've but passed colds on to my coats who have then in turn missed work, performed less well or passed it on. Masks are a very minor inconvenience to a vital staff group.

@Thewiseoneincognito we disagree on that - don't think the point is strange at all. I even have two consultants who refuse to wear them as they consider the evidence to be very flimsy, as do I.

I can’t imagine not wearing one at work.

[quote Vintagevixen]@Thewiseoneincognito we disagree on that - don't think the point is strange at all. I even have two consultants who refuse to wear them as they consider the evidence to be very flimsy, as do I.[/quote]
I bet they do 😉

No it's true - ones a radiologist, the other a cardiologist. One of them refers to masks as "that bollocks."

Most of my other Cardiology consultants wear them at half mast anyway - noses over the top and ear loops twirled to let breath out the side as they do angios!

Interesting question. I'm starting to think in some areas they will become permanent.

In the short term, my guess is not before summer 2022 and even then a) only if rates fall again and b) probably only for a few weeks before we have to begin again.

Not a happy thought.

I think they will become permanent in healthcare settings. They were worn before covid in hospitals in many countries, presumably as infection control.

I caught covid whilst wearing ppe and a surgical mask, as did 9 other colleagues last Dec.

I'm thinking that too, I'm in care. A lot of our residents can't understand us easily, especially those who use lip reading a lot.

I hope the impact on communication is considered when they are reviewing whether to keep them. Having had a baby at the start of the first lockdown it certainly wouldn't be my preference to have midwives in masks again. I ended up in a bit of an emergency situation at the end of labour and couldn't hear much of what the midwives and doctor were saying - I didn't hear them say that they were going to do an episiotomy though they must have told me. It just felt like things were being done to me by faceless people.

Appreciate that there will be patients who feel more comfortable with staff in masks but I felt that it had a direct negative impact on my care (albeit that this was at the beginning of the pandemic when no one was used to masks).

Hopefully they will be worn long term at least until hospitals are actually cleaned properly. Many are a disgusting state.

Secondary students in my area are going back into masks so I'm guessing you won't be out of them anytime soon

I hope it won't be for ever. I hate it!