Protecting the NHS has to start meaning that our frontline NHS heroes all have the personal protective equipment they need every time they go to work and put their lives on the line to save those of strangers.

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Protecting the NHS needs to start meaning that doctors, nurses and health carers all have quick and easy access to testing that tells them if they have the virus — or not.

Protecting the NHS must start meaning that we never again witness chaotic scenes like the ones in the Ikea car park in Wembley, North West London, this week, where NHS workers queued for hours to be tested and then were turned away because they did not have the correct paperwork.

In a time of national emergency I am reluctant to criticise a Government facing an un­preceden­ted national health crisis.

But this is pathetic.

And it is certainly not “Protecting the NHS”.

When the little boats were rescuing our Army on the beaches of Dunkirk, were soldiers stopped from getting on board because they lacked the correct paperwork? Turning up at a testing centre with a valid NHS ID card should be all that any exhausted, over­worked NHS worker ever needs.

Only a few thousand out of half a million of our frontline NHS heroes have been tested.

NHS trusts send tests to Germany because they get the results quicker than they do here — and yet some testing centres, like the one in Chessington, Surrey, stand empty.

That scandalous state of affairs is not protecting the NHS in the way it needs and, God knows, deserves.

And it is not just the Government that needs to up its game.

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Public Health England (PHE), the agency responsible for organising national coronavirus testing, has not been fit for purpose.

PHE has an annual budget of £4.5billion to “protect and improve the nation’s health and well-being” and 242 senior executives coining six-figure salaries.

But Germany is doing 70,000 coronavirus tests EVERY DAY while in the UK the figure is just 8,000.

PHE is doing a lousy job protecting the health of the nation, and the NHS.

There are currently 200,000 NHS workers off sick or self-isolating, with no idea if they have corona­virus. This is nowhere near good enough.

As Boris Johnson croaked from his sick bed, mass testing among the general population is the ONLY way out of this national purgatory.

But at the moment we do not even have widespread testing among our NHS workers.

Right now we are letting down those selfless doctors, nurses and health carers.

On Thursday night at 8pm, my street in North London resounded to the sound of grateful clapping for our carers.

But as our frontline health workers start to die, they need more than a weekly standing ovation.

They need us to understand that the lockdown rules apply to us all.

Lucy Hutchings, 19, is a nurse caring for coronavirus patients in Southampton.

In a Facebook post, shared 80,000 times, she wrote it is “devastating” to see so much suffering when there are still people not following simple rules about staying home, staying safe and protecting the NHS.

“I’m scared, everybody I work with is scared,” wrote Lucy, her face etched with exhaustion after another gruelling 13-hour shift.

“The quicker people stay indoors, the quicker it will be over.

“I’d like to stay at home but I can’t, so for people to go against the rules is so stupid and irresponsible.

“I keep myself away from my mum, dad and brother because I don’t want to pass the virus on. It’s a hard thing to do.”

Lucy’s face should haunt us all.

Remember it every time some thick-as-mince footballer wraps his expensive motor around a lamppost.

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RISK THEIR LIVES

Remember Lucy’s face every time you see people who think social isolation rules do not apply to them.

Remember Lucy’s face if you want to understand what a long way we have to go before we truly start supporting the NHS.

Yes, it is hard for a people raised in freedom to obey these restrictive rules.

But NOBODY has a harder job right now than those NHS workers who are risking their lives in under-equipped, overcrowded hospitals that are being pushed to breaking point and beyond.

The health crisis is unprecedented in our lifetime but the Government cannot keep cocking it up.

The NHS does not have the kit it needs, the testing it needs, the support it needs.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock promises 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of April.

If Hancock does not deliver, get shot of him.

Because right now, that “Protect the NHS” slogan is looking heartbreakingly empty.

Let heroes stay in UK

ALL foreign doctors, nurses and paramedics with visas due to expire in October will have them automatically extended for one year. This is not generous enough.

All foreign NHS workers who are out there now fighting on the frontline deserve British passports.

If these foreign heroes are good enough to risk their lives to save our lives, then they have earned the right to stay in the UK for ever.

A pants career

CLAUDIA Schiffer tells Elle magazine that at the height of her supermodel glory days she felt like a rock star. She reveals that she would return from another hard shift on the runway to discover that her bra and knickers had been stolen by obsessive fans.

“It was insane,” she says. “Like being a rock star.”

Well, not quite, Claudia. I never met a rock star who wore underpants.

Sports idiots of the year

THESE days sporting headlines are largely concerned with our heroes revealing themselves to have the brain power of pigeons.

Boxer Billy Joe Saunders (jokes about domestic abuse).

Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish (an all-night party during lockdown and its messy aftermath, including car prangs and mismatched slippers).

Stoke’s James McClean (japes about the IRA while sporting a black balaclava).

They can give Sports Personality Of The Year to Tyson Fury now.

Markets of death

NEVER forget that – like Sars and swine flu – Covid-19 began in the filthy wet markets of China, where every kind of animal, living and dead, is sold in grotesque conditions.

This global health and economic catastrophe was totally avoidable.

And next time, the cruel, contaminated markets of China could produce an even more virulent disease.

In with the old

NO wonder George Moore, five, looks pleased with the “old man haircut” given to him by his brother Harry, seven.

Some blokes have to wait 60 years for a haircut like that, George.

Lea spies hypocrisy in #MeToo

IN an interview to promote the next 007 film, No Time To Die, Bond girl Lea Seydoux says that the #MeToo movement is riddled with “hypocrisy”.

Lea, who plays Dr Madeleine Swann, said: “People knew! And they take advantage now to say, ‘Yes, I’ve been a victim’. There is a lot of hypocrisy.”

It’s a bit rich someone from the Bond franchise complaining about hypocrisy.

Daniel Craig said in 2015 that he would “rather slash his wrists” than play James Bond again.
But when No Time To Die is finally released in November, there will be downbeat Dan, glowering meaningfully at Lea for an estimated – not to mention obscene – £20million.

And what could be more hypocritical than that, Lea?

Sundays law crazy

AS this newspaper pointed out last week, it is totally bonkers that archaic Sunday trading laws restrict large grocery stores to just six hours of trading on Sundays.

Nobody in the country is finding it easy to buy essential shopping for their family right now.

Yet supermarkets can’t stay open for longer than six hours on a Sunday, even though the hours of convenience stores are not limited by prehistoric trading laws.

The Department for Food says it has no plans to extend Sunday trading hours. Why the hell not?

As Iceland boss Richard Walker says: “We have spoken to the Government about this.

“My hands are still tied with these archaic Sunday trading laws.

“This is a moment of national crisis and we need our shops open.”

When the current three weeks of lockdown ends next week, it will inevitably be extended.

This will be a bitter pill for everyone in lockdown Britain.

Scrapping the Sunday trading laws would make it easier to swallow.

Waste of a Prince

PRINCE William wants to return to his air ambulance duties.

Meanwhile, Prince Harry scuttles off to Los Angeles in the last private jet out of Canada before the borders closed.

And the tragedy is that Harry would have been brilliant during our national emergency.

Harry was born for mucking in, raising spirits and doing his bit.

Can you imagine the reaction Harry would have got in an overstretched NHS hospital? What a waste.

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