Doctors, nurses and other NHS staff are to be offered ongoing counselling and therapy in order to avoid burn-out, guilt and post-traumatic stress disorder due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The plan to protect the mental health of workers acknowledges they will have to make harrowing ethical decisions in the coming weeks and months, understood to include potential rationing of care and explaining to relatives that there is nothing more that can be done for their loved one.
It notes that in the early stages some people will be in denial, while others will go into overdrive. The programme has been drawn up by an array of senior psychiatric and medical experts - including Prof Matthew Makin, medical director at North Manchester General - in