A HOSPITAL boss has apologised to staff after confirming that scores of theatre staff in Carlisle and Whitehaven worked with inadequately tested face masks.

The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) has accused the NHS trust which runs The Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and West Cumberland Hospital in Whitehaven of "reckless" behaviour, claiming the failure - over a five week period - may have put lives at risk.

Some workers were in tears as they were told that the respirator masks given to 130 theatre staff during April were not properly 'fit-tested." The procedure ensures that the masks are sufficiently airtight to prevent infection from minute droplets.

The RCN will now formally write to the Health and Safety Executive about the failure.

Professor John Howarth, deputy chief executive of North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, accepted the criticism, saying: "We should have done better.

"I've met with staff and I've apologised."

He said that at the time of the problem the hospital trust was facing a challenge of unprecedented scale and complexity, which involved a stream of urgent PPE deliveries, much of it with differing training requirements.

Managers were also reconfiguring the trust's two hospitals, and doubling their critical care capacity.

Now, nearly 90 staff have been trained to fit the respirator masks, and managers were determined to learn the necessary lessons.

Though one member of theatre staff has tested positive for coronavirus, there was no evidence that badly fitted mask was to blame and no evidence of anybody being harmed as a result of the failing, added Mr Howarth.

But Glenn Turp, Director for the RCN Northern Region, said his members at the trust were devastated by what happened.

"Many will be very worried or frightened by what they’ve heard. It demonstrates reckless behaviour by the trust and a failure in its legal duty of care towards its staff and patients, which may put lives at risk.

“It is appalling that theatre staff have continued to work unaware of a serious problem with their masks for some five weeks. It took a whistleblower to raise concerns otherwise this could have gone unnoticed for much longer."

“Despite promises from the Westminster government, many employers continue to struggle obtaining sufficient and regular supplies of PPE or secure the same brand and make of equipment like facemasks.

Ruth May, the Chief Nursing Officer England wrote to all NHS trusts on 24 April to remind them of the importance to fit test all masks.

"Clearly this was overlooked by NCIC. It is critically important that employers remain vigilant at all times. The RCN will be writing to raise serious concerns with the HSE, the Care Quality Commission as well the commissioners and the trust. We will also be advising our members to raise any PPE or other concerns with their employer or contact us.”

In its formal statement, the trust said: "During the time in question our staff had the respirators and all the other essential PPE but were doing a procedure called self-checking – checking the seal of the masks themselves following a protocol. We have had an unprecedented challenge to try and keep up with the levels of fit testing required.

"We have gone from a small handful of trained fit testers to over 80 trained testers.

"Like trusts nationally we have received many different makes of masks from the supply chain and we did not know in advance the makes that we would receive.

"Each time a different mask is received we would have to fit check significant numbers of staff to the new masks yet the next consignment could be of a different type requiring us to start all over again.

"To try and mitigate this we issued our theatre teams with re-usable masks called Sundstrom masks in late March where the filter is changed regularly but the mask is cleaned and reused.

"The aim of this was to provide our staff with the same mask and avoid having to repeatedly refit different types of masks. The team were self-fit checking these masks and we accept that the delay to formally fit check the masks was too long. We have met the staff in the theatres and apologised for this delay.

"The sisters have reviewed all staff to make sure they are now fit tested.

"Fit testing has been always undertaken by the Trust for infectious diseases with a policy in place and as such many staff will have already had their checks before Covid-19. During March we had 15 fit testers within our infection control team and a small number of trained matrons and sisters. In early April we recognised a need to rapidly scale up fit testing and embed more testers in the teams.

"We now have 83 trained testers and are running regular sessions for staff.

"During April fit testing was available and advertised in staff bulletins, on our staff website and PPE was regularly discussed in team meetings. However we recognise the challenge of taking staff off the frontline for repeated fit testing so have now embedded testers in many of the teams.