Press release

29th September 2025

As health agencies continue to kick the can down the road, immunosuppressed patients and healthcare workers are being hit hardest by the lack of airborne infection prevention and control in healthcare settings  

A petition calling for effective measures against airborne infection in healthcare settings, was handed in to 10 Downing Street on 26^th June 2025 by Janet Newsham, coordinator at Greater Manchester Hazard’s Centre and chair of UK Hazards Campaign.

The petition with 7911 signatures represents the concerns of many clinically vulnerable and immunosuppressed patients across the UK, who experience difficulties safely accessing healthcare due to the lack of effective mitigations against airborne transmission of viruses, when they attend appointments.

Patients like Glyn Huskisson, 72, who lives in the South East of England and is immunocompromised. She had a kidney transplant in September 2020, and is currently receiving on-going cancer treatment for breast cancer. She also has asthma and COPD. In May 2025 she was admitted to hospital for an operation. Despite asking nursing staff to wear effective FFP2/3 masks in the recovery room, she awoke to find that they had ignored her request. Glyn contracted a nasty respiratory illness and had to deal with severe coughing fits, while recovering from her operation.

Glyn’s experience is sadly relatively common, with the irony being that in 2025 we have the necessary equipment and expertise to greatly reduce the number of people who become ill from airborne viruses in our heatlhcare settings, yet very few healthcare authorities have taken steps to implement safety measures.

Janet was joined at the petition hand-in by representatives from medical organisations including Jonathan Fluxman from Doctors in Unite union and Dr. Alison Twycross RN, Chair of Supporting Healthcare Heroes Charity, Editor-in-Chief of Evidence Based Nursing and Honoury Associate Professor at University of Birmingham Nursing, and Sioux Vosper, who is a member of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice.   

The group of campaigners have now received a response to their petition.

In the response from the Department of Health and Social Care the Correspondence Officer said, “I appreciate the concerns you have raised.

“Although you have contacted the Department of Health and Social Care on the issue of air quality and PPE, this matter sits with the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).”

“At a national level, the Government recognises that long covid is a complex condition, with a wide range of symptoms, which, in the worst case, can be substantially incapacitating. The Government understands the scale of the issue at hand, which is also felt on employment and the economy. The Government is committed to ensuring that those with long covid, including healthcare workers, have timely access to a diagnosis and appropriate treatment and services.

“NHS England has also invested significantly in supporting people with long COVID. This includes setting up specialist post-COVID services nationwide for adults, and children and young people, and has also invested in ensuring general practice teams are equipped to support people affected by the condition.”

“This reply to our petition, which was calling for measures to protect all patients and NHS staff from airborne infection in healthcare settings was a wholly inadequate response” said Janet. “It will ultimately lead to more challenges especially as we know the post-Covid specialist services referenced in the reply, are now being dismantled.  In the North West we are looking at ways of challenging this.”

In fact a report from UK wide advocacy group Long Covid Support & the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Long Covid in Spring 2025, revealed that many specialist Long Covid services across the UK are shutting down or at risk of closure, leaving thousands without access to essential care.

The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) is an executive agency sponsored by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). This sponsorship means the DHSC provides policy direction, appoints UKHSA’s leadership, and holds the agency accountable to Parliament for its performance, as detailed in their shared framework document.

“The UK government website states that “UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) prevents, prepares for and responds to infectious diseases, and environmental hazards, to keep all our communities safe, save lives and protect livelihoods” said Janet. “Surely part of their response to a pandemic, is to continue to provide data that shows how many people are being infected in healthcare settings.”

This information is still provided by Public Health Wales for nosocomial infections in Welsh hospitals. They recently reported that on 24 August 2025, at least 76% of inpatient Covid cases in Wales were the result of hospital-acquired SARS-CoV-2 infection.  While the number of community acquired cases was just 25, and indeterminate acquisition cases were 17, the number of hospital acquired cases recorded in that week totalled 136.

“The Welsh statistics are clearly showing that hospitals are still a major hub of transmission for covid in 2025, yet UKHSA have stopped providing this data, as though the pandemic just magically disappeared” said Janet.  “The very fact that they do not provide these statistics, is the reason why the general public believe that there is no reason to worry about covid anymore.”

Dr. Alison Twycross RN, Chair of Supporting Healthcare Heroes Charity, is actively campaigning for more airborne infection prevention and control measures in all healthcare settings. 

“The response to the petition from the Department of Health and Social Care is in the main referencing people who have already got long covid, rather than addressing how to prevent the spread of covid in healthcare settings as a priority” said Alison.

“As well as supporting healthcare workers with long covid, Supporting Healthcare Heroes charity advocate strongly for better indoor air quality in healthcare environments to reduce transmission risks and prevent more heatlhcare workers succumbing to the effects of long covid.

“In 2022 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) estimated that 3.55% of people working in healthcare in the UK had ongoing symptoms following a Covid-19 infection, compared to 3.1% in the general population. Evidence suggests the number of healthcare professionals with Long Covid has increased in the past 3 years.

“Healthcare professionals are at increased risk of Long Covid due to repeated exposure to SARS-CoV-2, often in poorly ventilated environments and with inconsistent access to effective respiratory protection. Multiple infections raise the likelihood of developing persistent symptoms. This puts healthcare staff at higher risk of long-term health impacts compared with the general population. 

“Infection prevention and control measures to protect more staff becoming ill from airborne infections are urgently needed.”

Heading into autumn and winter, the patient and healthcare workers organisations are pressing ahead with their call to protect patients and NHS staff with measures such as air filters and the use of effective FFP2/3 masks in medical settings.

They will now write to the UK Health Security Agency where Professor Susan Hopkins has been appointed as the new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and is expected to begin the role in Autumn 2025.

Professor Hopkins is an infectious disease clinician, epidemiologist and public health leader, having studied medicine at Trinity College Dublin and trained in infectious diseases, microbiology and epidemiology across Ireland, France and the UK.

The patient and healthcare workers advocacy groups would also like the public to support their campaign by signing this petition https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/732047calling on the UKHSA to monitor and report on the number of COVID infections that occur in healthcare settings. 

ENDS