ONE in 10 health workers felt suicidal at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic while Tory cronies were raking in huge profits, shocking new research revealed today.

The study, led by the University of Bristol, looked at two surveys of thousands of NHS workers across England in 2020 and 2021 and found that 10.8 per cent had reported experiencing suicidal thoughts, while 2.1 per cent had attempted to take their own life.

A “lack of confidence in raising safety concerns, feeling unsupported by managers, having to provide a lower standard of care and exposure to things that went against people’s moral values” were to blame, the study shows. 

The findings, described as “chilling” by health union Unite, came as a Tory former health minister said that “making money is not a crime” as he defended the VIP lane for coronavirus-related contracts that saw politically connected firms win lucrative deals.

Some were paid tens of millions of pounds in taxpayer cash to supply personal protective equipment (PPE) and other essential items that later turned out to be unusable.

Challenged on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Lord Bethell, who became a junior minister in the Department of Health and Social Care just before the first coronavirus lockdown in March 2020, said: “There are bits of it that I find extremely distasteful.

“But it’s a fact of life that you need people who want to make lots of money to go and do entrepreneurial things.”

Unite national officer for health Colenzo Jarrett-Thorpe commented that ministers had “learnt nothing,” adding: “There is one rule for the rich and wealthy and another for the rest of us.”

He told the Morning Star: “Health workers were placed under unacceptable strain during the pandemic. 

“The government’s inexcusable failure to address the chronic pay problems, which [are] making understaffing ever more extreme, is placing ever more pressure on a loyal and dedicated workforce.”

Fellow health union GMB warned that front-line staff had been left exposed following a decade of “brutal austerity cuts” to NHS budgets, which saw them rise by just 1 to 2 per cent a year in real terms as opposed to an average 4 per cent previously. 

“They were left helpless in the face of this terrifying virus, with GMB members having little or no PPE, often resorting to bin bags in desperation,” a spokesperson told the Star.