Have healthcare professionals abandoned their ethical codes?

Written by Dr Gary Sidley on July 21, 2025. Posted in Current News

Explicit ethical principles and values have long been recognised as constituting essential frameworks to guide the day-to-day activities of professionals working in healthcare

Any newly qualified practitioner – doctor, nurse, psychologist, therapist – is routinely directed towards the relevant ‘code of ethics’ document and told that it is imperative to abide by these doctrines throughout their career.

Although wide ranging in their scope, the ethical codes of all disciplines focus on the crucial importance of ensuring that the unique needs of each individual patient are prioritised.

Yet, despite their purported importance in ensuring sound clinical practice, throughout the covid event, these foundational guidelines were habitually ignored by all of the healthcare professions.

To illustrate this mismatch between ethical code and healthcare activity, this article will focus on three professional groups: medical doctors, nurses, and psychologists.

A few key elements of each discipline’s code of ethics will be highlighted, together with specific examples of how these principles were consistently disregarded during the covid era, omissions that collectively constitute a mass abandonment of ethical doctrines.

DOCTORS

Upon qualifying, each physician agrees to adhere to the foundation stone of medical practice, the Hippocratic oath – ‘First do no harm’ – that requires doctors to ensure that ‘all medical treatment is proportionate, necessary and voluntary’ (Hippocrates 400 BC).

In essence, this central tenet dictates that each medical intervention must have both a reasonable expectation of being effective (achieving net benefits for the individual patient) and to only be executed with the full agreement of the recipient (informed consent).

Also, importantly, the Hippocratic oath legitimises the option of doing nothing.

Contemporary ethical guidance from the General Medical Council (GMC) ‘Professional Standards’ develops these two key themes of effectiveness and informed consent.

Regarding the former, doctors are urged to, ‘Protect and promote the health of patients and the public’, and to ‘keep their knowledge and skills up to date and provide a good standard of practice and care’.

As for the latter, the GMC requires the practitioner to, ‘Listen to patients and work in partnership with them, supporting them to make informed decisions about their care’, involving consideration of ‘the patients views, needs and values … You must be satisfied that you have consent or other valid authority before examining or treating patients’.

Disturbingly, throughout the covid era, we witnessed mass disregard for both these cornerstones of ethical practice.

The medical profession’s enthusiastic championing of the novel mRNA vaccination programme constituted a clear infringement of both the first-do-no-harm imperative and the requirement to obtain informed consent before administering an intervention.

With very few exceptions, every physician – from Professor Chris Whitty (the nation’s Chief Medical Officer) to the everyday general practitioner – promulgated the ‘safe and effective’ mantra on a mission to get the jabs into as many arms as possible, including those of pregnant women and children.

By exaggerating the benefits, while underplaying the potential harms, of the covid-19 vaccines, doctors violated the ethical imperative to ‘do no harm’; a cursory exploration of the relevant research about mRNA vaccines – to ‘keep their knowledge up to date’ – would most likely have alerted them to the potential negative consequences of these compounds.

Indeed, as early as November 2020, before the vaccine rollout had even begun, the UK Medical Freedom Alliance had written an open letter to the regulators and to our secretary of state, highlighting the potential risks of these products.

By actively participating in the unrelenting campaign to vaccinate their patients, doctors were also guilty of infringing the ethical imperative to obtain informed consent.

How many of the vaccine recipients would say that, prior to administration, they were given all the relevant information about the pros and cons of the jabs, and that their ‘views, needs, and values’ were incorporated into the decision-making process?

And how many doctors must now wince when they are reminded of the GMC’s guidance on consent that states:

‘When recommending an option for treatment or care to a patient you must … share information about reasonable alternatives, including the option to take no action. You must not put pressure on a patient to accept your advice’?

But mass neglect of the requirements to do no harm and to obtain consent were not the only ethical transgressions by doctors during the covid event. Arguably even more concerning was the systemic conflicts of interest that would lead impartial observers to doubt whether doctors were always prioritising their patients’ health needs above their own financial positions and career progressions.

The GMC Professional Standards state:

‘You must not allow any interests you have to affect, or be seen to affect the way you propose, provide or prescribe treatments, refer patients, or commission services’.

As one example of infringement of this principle, how can the government’s routine financial incentives for vaccines administration – during the covid event, GP practices received about £10 per jab from the government – be compatible with always prioritising the needs of each patient?

More disturbingly, as proposed in a previous HART paper:

‘‘There is now clear evidence of regulatory, scientific, academic and political capture of healthcare, which is a burgeoning industry benefitting commercial interests over patients’.

When senior doctors like Professors Whitty (Chief Medical Officer) & Van Tam (Deputy Chief Medical Officer) appeared in the daily covid press briefings to implore us all to get vaccinated, how confident can we be that their utterances were motivated more by concerns for the health of the nation rather than their relationships – past present and future – with the multi-billion pounds pharmaceutical industry?

(The fact that Van Tam is now a senior medical consultant with the vaccine maker, Moderna, may go some way to answering this question).

NURSES

The nursing profession’s seemingly universal commitment to the speedy rollout of the covid vaccines indicates that, they too, committed mass infringement of their own ethical codes around effectiveness and consent.

According to the standards set by the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC):

‘Nurses must always practice in line with the best available evidence’ and ‘maintain the knowledge and skills you need for safe and effective practice’.

In executing their pivotal role in the speedy delivery of the covid jabs to as many people as possible, there was little indication that the actions of nurses were informed by up-to-date knowledge of the vaccines’ adverse effects.

And, prior to the inoculations, how many of their patients were furnished with sufficient information to fulfil the NMC requirement to ‘make sure that you get properly informed consent and document it before carrying out any action’? Undoubtedly, the answer is very few.

The fact that the administration of the vaccines was often entrusted to less-qualified practitioners does not relieve nurses of their ethical responsibilities around effective practice and consent; another part of their NMC code requires members of the profession to ‘Be accountable for your decisions to delegate tasks and duties to other people’.

Away from the experimental mRNA vaccines, it is important to question whether qualified nurses – during the covid event – fulfilled their ethical duty to challenge unacceptable practice.

Here, the pertinent part of their ethical code states that a nurse must ‘act as an advocate for the vulnerable, challenging poor practice and discriminatory attitudes and behaviour relating to their care’.

While members of all professions are morally obliged to ‘whistle blow’ should they witness a colleague engaging in harmful and unacceptable practice, the nursing ethical guidance is notably explicit about this responsibility.

Yet, multiple anecdotal reports (from the Scottish Covid Inquiry and other sources), together with evidence of markedly inflated non-covid mortality/morbidity among vulnerable groups (such as those with dementia or learning difficulties), strongly imply that many nurses must have seen the maltreatment of vulnerable groups but remained silent.

Awkward questions need to be asked. How many nurses witnessed patients in good physical health, but with cognitive deficits, being pressured into agreeing to ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ orders (DNRs) – a policy these patients would often not have understood – yet did not raise concerns with the appropriate managers?

How many nurses witnessed the gross neglect of elderly residents with dementia, where the care workers’ concerns about contagion resulted in the basic needs of their charges around hygiene and nutrition not being met, yet did not speak up or intervene?

How many nurses were privy to the excessive and/or premature administration of life-shortening drugs (such as morphine or midazolam) to vulnerable groups – whose lives were implicitly deemed to be of less value – yet did not whistle blow?

These are discomforting questions, but they should be discussed in an open and transparent way if we are to maintain the ethical integrity of health and social care provision.

PSYCHOLOGISTS

It could be argued that the medical and nursing ethical misdemeanours witnessed during the covid event (discussed above) were rendered more likely by a general climate of amplified risk perception and inflated fear.

And as psychological practitioners – such as clinical psychologists and behavioural scientists – played a central role in propagating disproportionate alarm as a means of promoting greater compliance with ‘pandemic’ restrictions, they could be deemed to have indirectly contributed to the morally questionable behaviours of other professional disciplines.

Many professionals specialising in the shaping of human behaviour provided advice to the government about how to increase the power and effectiveness of their covid messaging campaign.

One high-profile group of experts was the ‘Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours’ (SPI-B), whose remit was to offer guidance on ‘Strategies for behaviour change, to support control of and recovery from the epidemic’, and whose membership included several high-profile clinical psychologists.

The group’s recommendations incorporated the deployment of often-covert behavioural science strategies – ‘nudges’ – that relied on fear inflation, shaming, and peer pressure as a means of levering compliance with the covid restrictions.

A prominent example of the SPI-B recommending fear inflation is contained in the group’s minutes of the 22^nd March 2020, when they stated:

‘The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent’ by ‘using hard-hitting emotional messaging’.

In addition to the members of the SPI-B, there were many state-funded behavioural scientists embedded within the government infrastructure during the covid event who also recommended the covert deployment of fear, shame, and peer pressure as a way of strengthening public health communications – one stark example is provided by the nudgers based in the Cabinet Office who were nominally responsible for providing guidance in the development of the controversial ‘Look them in the eyes’ videos and posters.

The use of furtive strategies of persuasion, relying on the strategic promotion of emotional discomfort in the pursuit of highly contentious and collaterally damaging goals, has evoked ethical concerns.

By recommending these methods, the clinical psychologists on the SPI-B group were clearly at odds with the ethical code of their professional organisation – the British Psychological Association – that requires that:

‘Psychologists value the dignity and worth of all persons, with sensitivity to the dynamics of perceived authority or influence over persons and peoples and with particular regard to people’s rights.

In applying these values, Psychologists should consider: … consent … self-determination.

‘Psychologists value their responsibilities … to the general public … including the avoidance of harm and the prevention of misuse or abuse of their contribution to society.’

The covert nature of many of their methods of persuasion, the absence of informed consent from those targeted, and the widespread harms caused both by inflated fear per se and the restrictions (lockdowns, masks, social isolation) it supported, undoubtedly infringed these guiding ethical principles.

Similarly, the central role of behavioural scientists in designing government communications that relied upon using fear, shame, and scapegoating (otherwise known as ‘affect’, ‘ego’, and ‘normative pressure’ nudges) places this professional group in ethically murky waters.

It is, however, difficult to fathom which ethical code (if any) underpins the work of this group of state-funded influencers. The Behavioural Insight Team (BIT -aka the ‘Nudge Unit’) states on its website that its research proposals are ‘required to receive ethical review and sign off’ from groups external to the project team, and – in the BIT value statement – they reassure us of their commitment to ‘upholding the highest ethical standards’ and ‘promoting transparency and accountability’.

Furthermore, the BIT claims that it constantly strives to improve people’s welfare by ‘changing millions of lives for the better’ and ‘driving innovation for social good’.

Yet many groups of citizens targeted by their covert nudge strategies during the covid event would find it impossible to reconcile their experiences with these lofty principles: the elderly people dying alone because people were too frightened to visit; the mass casualties of lockdowns, and those abused and harassed for making the rational decision not to mask or vaccinate – to name just three.

The above examples support the conclusion that, throughout the covid era, healthcare professionals habitually behaved in ways that were at odds with their ethical codes.

In the areas of effective practice, doing no harm, gaining informed consent, whistle blowing when witnessing unacceptable behaviour of colleagues, or avoiding perceived conflicts of interest, all disciplines – doctors, nurses, psychologist, and behavioural scientists – were guilty of routine infringement of at least some of these moral imperatives.

How can we explain this mass abandonment of ethical guidelines? A future article will propose some key reasons for this alarming anomaly.

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Header image: Doctors Council

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