The COVID-19 pandemic placed extraordinary demands on healthcare professionals. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, healthcare assistants and other frontline staff continued caring for patients while facing uncertainty about the virus, exceptionally high workloads and concerns about their own safety and the safety of their families.
The UK COVID-19 Inquiry’s Module 3 report, published on 19 March 2026, has provided further recognition of just how difficult these circumstances were. The Inquiry concluded that PPE supplies were particularly constrained at the beginning of the pandemic and that healthcare workers sometimes had to work with inadequate or unsuitable protective equipment.
For many healthcare professionals, this was not simply an operational problem. It was a significant source of fear, stress and anxiety.
Working without the protection you need and expect
Personal protective equipment (PPE), including masks, gowns, gloves and eye protection, was an essential part of keeping healthcare professionals safe while treating patients with COVID-19.
Yet the Inquiry found that healthcare workers did not always have appropriate PPE available, particularly during the early stages of the pandemic. In an April 2020 Royal College of Nursing survey considered by the Inquiry, 27% of nurses working in areas involving aerosol-generating procedures reported that they did not have enough FFP3 masks for their shift, while 40% were worried about future supplies. A British Medical Association survey also found that only 39% of doctors working in settings where aerosol-generating procedures were carried out felt they had an adequate supply of FFP3 masks.
Imagine going to work knowing you will be caring for people with a potentially life-threatening infectious disease while being uncertain whether you will have the equipment needed to protect yourself.
That uncertainty can create an enormous psychological burden.
Fear, stress and anxiety among healthcare workers
The Inquiry specifically recognised that insufficient PPE did more than increase the potential risk of infection. It also contributed to fear, stress and anxiety among healthcare workers.
Healthcare professionals were not only concerned about becoming ill themselves. Many were also living with the fear that they could become infected at work and potentially expose their partners, children or other family members.
At the same time, they were expected to continue providing compassionate care to patients, often while services were under immense pressure.
The wider mental health impact
PPE shortages were only one part of the psychological pressures experienced by healthcare professionals during the pandemic.
The Module 3 report describes healthcare workers operating under immense pressure, witnessing death on an unprecedented scale and dealing with increased workloads against a backdrop of existing workforce shortages. The Inquiry found that staff mental health was severely affected, with burnout common and many healthcare workers showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder.
The Inquiry’s Every Story Matters project, which gathered experiences from more than 32,000 people, similarly recorded accounts of health and care professionals experiencing burnout and poorer mental health. Some contributors described eventually leaving their professions because of the impact on their wellbeing.
When professional duty conflicts with personal safety
For some healthcare professionals, one of the most difficult aspects of the pandemic was the conflict between their commitment to caring for patients and concerns about whether they were adequately protected themselves.
This can contribute to what is sometimes described as moral distress (or ‘moral injury’): the psychological distress that may arise when someone knows what they believe should happen but feels unable to achieve it because of circumstances beyond their control.
For a healthcare professional, being expected to care for seriously ill patients while feeling that adequate protection is unavailable can create a particularly difficult emotional conflict. This conflict was also contributed to by not being able to provide the level of care and dignity they felt they ought to provide patients and their carers because of restrictions imposed in order to contain the pandemic.
These experiences should not be dismissed simply because the immediate crisis has passed.
The effects can continue long after the event
For some people, psychological difficulties become apparent immediately after a traumatic or highly stressful experience. For others, symptoms can persist or emerge later.
Healthcare professionals affected by their pandemic experiences may experience anxiety, low mood, sleep difficulties, intrusive memories, avoidance, irritability, emotional exhaustion, loss of enjoyment, or demotivation.
Importantly, everyone’s experience is different. Working during the pandemic does not automatically mean that someone will develop a mental health condition. Where symptoms are persistent or significantly affecting everyday life, however, a professional assessment can help establish what someone is experiencing and what support may be appropriate.
Recognising the psychological cost of the pandemic
The COVID-19 Inquiry provides an important opportunity to understand not only what happened within healthcare systems but also what those circumstances meant for the people working within them.
Its findings reinforce something many healthcare professionals experienced first-hand: feeling inadequately protected while caring for patients during a frightening and uncertain pandemic carried a psychological as well as a physical cost.
For healthcare professionals still affected by their experiences during COVID-19, seeking support remains important. The pandemic may have ended as an emergency, but for some of the people who worked through it, its emotional consequences have not necessarily ended with it.
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