24/06/2020
My take on today’s announcement from Boris regarding relaxing of lockdown - applicable to medical professionals only.
Having read the available guidance and the statement that Boris made today I have reached the following conclusions. Certain business types have been told they can definitely open, certain business types have been told they should specifically stay closed. Unless you fall into one of these two groups I feel it is up to you to base your decision on the other available guidance i.e. from the GMC, NMC, BCAM, JCCP, insurers.
There are huge inconsistencies and gaps in the guidance set out today - hair is allowed, nails aren’t; you can go to a bar open until 4am but not a nightclub open until 2.
So, we need to make up our own minds based on what guidance is out there and makes logical sense.
The British college of aesthetic medicine has stated that these are medical procedures and under the original lockdown legislation we never needed to close; the GMC issues a joint statement with the JCCP last week that I interpret as saying ‘use your own judgement about whether to treat as long as you stay with PHE guidance around PPE and social distancing’ (https://aestheticsjournal.com/news/gmc-releases-guidance-on-return-to-work). The guidance from insurance companies has been inconsistent but mostly skirts around for whatever the government, PHE and tour regulatory body say’ which I have outlined above.
So, where does this (as medical professionals) leave us? Probably with two options...
1) Plan to open on the 4th July- legally I can’t see this being a problem - we have knowledge and training in IPC, we would have SOPs for treating patients (and they are patients), we’d be following PHE guidance on PPE and we are autonomous medical professionals making decisions based on our best judgement.
Unless there is further guidance on this in the next 10 days
2) Await further guidance from HMG, Insurance, GMC, NMC, JCCP or whoever else wants to stick their neck out and issue some guidance to the medical aesthetics sector. This is unlikely to happen in the next 10 days so you are committing yourself to an unknown outcome.
What am I going to do?
I’m going to use my autonomous decision making, my clinical knowledge on infection prevention and control, my medical knowledge of the risks associated with the procedures we do and my ability, as a doctor, to deal with them....
I’ll see you all very soon...