This Sunday will see the nation come together to mark the fifth anniversary of the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.
As part of the commemoration, I will be standing alongside other representatives from the healthcare professions, as we gather before the COVID memorial wall in central London.
The emphasis of the day will rightly be one of solemnity and heartfelt reflection, as each of us remembers just how the effects of the pandemic forever changed us personally, professionally and as a society.
We will remember the enormous strains and unimaginable sacrifices made by the NHS, its staff and the public in the struggle to provide adequate care with inadequate prevention, people and personal protection.
Above all, we will remember those colleagues, neighbours, friends and loved ones we lost during those dark times.
Like all of you, I can remember only too well how COVID descended upon our surgeries, clinics and wards and how the day-to-day realities of working in the NHS were transformed.
We rapidly became a front line in the national response behind a first line of defence that too easily exposed how ill-prepared the UK was for the virus.
There was an almost overwhelming uncertainty that characterised the early days and weeks, as many of us prepared to grasp the magnitude of the tsunami of patients we expected from reports of our colleagues around the world, particularly in Italy.
The grim reality of drafting wills and updating life insurance policies
We were left to wonder: how would we be able to treat and save the thousands of gravely ill patients being hurriedly delivered into our care?
Then there was the fear.
The often futile struggle to get hold of appropriate or adequate PPE, the grim reality of drafting wills and updating life insurance policies as we hurried to get our personal affairs in order.
The terror we felt daily as we worried about our own health and that of our families, and asked ourselves ‘would we survive for our children?’ and ‘would we bring the pandemic through our front doors?’
We must ensure, however, that the National Day of Reflection is not only an occasion for remembrance but also a timely reminder of the need to do better in future.
The site of Sunday’s remembrance, the COVID memorial wall, is a mural of individually painted hearts and personal messages to the more than 230,000 lives lost during the pandemic.
Spanning around 500 metres of the South Bank of the Thames, the memorial poignantly and perhaps pointedly faces off against the Houses of Parliament on the other side of the river.
The UK COVID-19 inquiry into the impact of the pandemic, and how those at the heart of power responded to it, remains a vital and ongoing effort towards obtaining clarity on the many still unanswered questions we as doctors face.
Having appeared before the inquiry three times now to provide evidence on behalf of the BMA, giving voice to the thousands of members of our profession, I know how many of you are still suffering directly and indirectly as a result of COVID and how important it is to you that we get to the truth of what happened across those years – and what is still happening today.
We, and the public, deserve to know how decisions made by previous governments to underfund and dismantle public health services affected the ability of local health protection teams to respond effectively during the early stages of the pandemic.
We deserve to hear why and how ministers were able to waste billions on failed initiatives such as test and trace and on unusable PPE for the NHS, failures which not only harmed people but which saw public money diverted into the pockets of the private sector.
If only those billions had been spent earlier on ensuring our still fragmented healthcare system listened to those with expertise actually on the front line.
The virus continues to pose a threat to health
While the days of lockdowns, waves and peaks may be behind us – for now – the physical and psychological wounds from the pandemic years remain, and they have left behind a whole generation that will never be the same.
Despite the narrative that we must get on with our lives and learn to live with COVID, the SARS-CoV-2 virus continues to pose a threat to health.
This is particularly true for the thousands of extremely clinically vulnerable people, including doctors, forced to contend with it while the world carries on seemingly oblivious to the harm it can still cause.
While there remains an abrogation of responsibility, we have a duty to call out poor safety practices.
It is simply unacceptable, for example, that FRSMs are fielded as PPE for COVID, when effective FFP respiratory protection is needed.
It was our lived reality that those who used respirators in intensive care were largely protected and those treating patients with the SARS-CoV-2 virus who wore paper surgical masks caught COVID.
Dr Banfield with the COVID memorial sculpture at BMA House
While we honour the memories of those who tragically paid the ultimate price during the pandemic, we must also remember those who remain among us yet who are forever changed.
The BMA has made it abundantly clear that there must be far more awareness, recognition and support for those afflicted and still struggling to reclaim their lives from the shadow of COVID and long COVID.
There also needs to be an honest discussion about the mental scars carried by doctors and healthcare professionals.
Many of us continue to live with the hideous guilt and moral injury of knowing there were patients, colleagues and our own loved ones we were unable to help, or whom we may have harmed by inadvertently exposing them to COVID after contracting the virus ourselves.
While the inquiry’s work remains ongoing, I can emphatically state that the BMA will not cease in its commitment to the struggle to get to the truth and fight for change.
As we all bow our heads to reflect and remember this Sunday, we should also lift them and pledge to look to a future with answers; a future that says we owe it to those we lost to be better prepared next time.