Nearly 40% of doctors say they don’t think the three-tier local lockdown system will be effective in containing the spread of coronavirus.
Despite the huge social and economic cost of the measures, only 6% of doctors polled by the British Medical Association said they believed the new rules would reduce transmission to a ‘significant extent.’
Asked how effective they thought the tiering system is likely to be, more than a third (37%) said they felt they would have ‘no impact or be ineffective’, less than half (46%) said they thought they would work to a ‘slight extent’ and just 5.95% said a ‘significant extent.’
The BMA conducted the wide-ranging study to look at the key concerns of doctors going into the tough winter period.
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It also raised concerns about the confidence of healthcare staff for the months ahead, with more than half saying they are ‘quite anxious’ about it.
Almost two thirds (65%) said staffing shortages are a concern, while 60% said they are concerned about their personal health and wellbeing.
When it comes to dealing with patients, 58% said they are concerned about the ability to cope with demand from non-Covid patients, and 44% said they were worried about the ability to cope with demand from patients with Covid symptoms.
More than 6,000 medics were questioned as part of the survey and the findings show the ‘enormous scale of the challenges’ facing the NHS into winter, the BMA chairman said.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul said: ‘Doctors know that this winter is likely be one of the most difficult times of their careers.
‘They are extremely worried about the ability for the NHS to cope and their ability to care for the needs of their patients.’
The BMA said it is calling for the Government to be ‘both honest and realistic with the public about whether the NHS can cope with routine care and Covid care this winter’.
Almost a fifth (19%) of those questioned said in the two weeks leading up to the mid-October survey they had seen a significant increase in the number of Covid cases and it was higher than the same point in the first wave.
Some 11% said while their local health system has plans in place to be able to address the backlog of patients whose care was cancelled, delayed or otherwise disrupted amid the pandemic, they had not yet made any progress, while just over a quarter (27%) said they had made some.
Only around a third said they have premises that are currently suitable to adequately separate Covid and non-Covid patients – a statistic the BMA said highlights how difficult it will be to meet an expectation of resuming normal NHS services.
Dr Nagpaul said: ‘Large numbers of doctors across England have little faith that the Government’s current “tiered” based lock-downs will have any significant impact on controlling the virus.
‘Instead of a few short weeks of suppression, bringing economic and emotional misery for those in the areas affected, we need a national prevention strategy that has a lasting impact and gets growing infection rates under control across England.’
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