‘Protect the NHS slogan was not helpful’: Senior GP says

‘Protect the NHS slogan was not helpful’: Senior GP says Government’s pandemic mantra prevented non-coronavirus patients from seeing their doctor

  • Government introduced ‘protect the NHS’ slogan, in the initial lockdown, March
  • Professor Martin Marshall claimed the message prevented patients getting help 
  • He said it ‘wasn’t a very helpful message’, taken onboard too much by patients

The Protect the NHS slogan used at the start of the pandemic was not ‘very helpful’, according to a top GP.

Professor Martin Marshall, chairman of the Royal College of GPs, claimed the message prevented patients with other conditions from getting help.

Speaking at a Royal Society of Medicine webinar, he said there had been a ‘significant shift’ in patients not seeing their GP during the earlier stages of lockdown, with the number of consultations down by 24 per cent in May.

A road sign on the A367 into Bath advises motorists to stay at home to protect the NHS and save lives the day after Prime Minister Boris Johnson put the UK in lockdown, March 24, 2020

He suggested that this was partly due to the ‘protect the NHS’ slogan, used in the initial lockdown in March, which he said ‘wasn’t a very helpful message’.

‘There was a period where patients weren’t coming to see us, for a number of reasons I think, partly because they were worried about picking up infection if they came into a health vicinity,’ he told the event.

‘And partly because they took on board the message that ‘protect the NHS’, and I have to say in retrospect that wasn’t a very helpful message.

Messaging from the government urged people to stay at home and protect the NHS. Pictured: A paramedic wears a face mask outside Leeds General Infirmary, April, 2020

Messaging from the government urged people to stay at home and protect the NHS. Pictured: A paramedic wears a face mask outside Leeds General Infirmary, April, 2020

‘It was an understandable message at the time, we didn’t want to be in the position that we saw in Spain and Italy, of patients stuck on corridors rather than being admitted to ITU.

‘But that message, I think, possibly was taken onboard too much by patients who didn’t then come to see us.’