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COVID-19: Photo essay on UCL & UCLH staff

10 July 2020

A photographer has shot over 100 portraits of healthcare workers and support staff at UCLH for a photo essay about Covid-19. Included are some of UCL's medically-trained academics, who were freed from their research responsibilities to support NHS services during the pandemic.

David Lomas by Tom Pilston

Tom Pilston, the photographer, wanted to find a way to make his contribution during the Covid-19 pandemic and decided to create a photo essay of staff at UCLH as a way to pay tribute to the NHS, a service which he describes as “all that is good about the UK…humane and caring, hard-working, sensitive and strong”.

The portraits capture not just staff who work directly with Covid-19 patients, but also staff keeping the rest of the emergency services going and those who have adapted to helping out in new working environments outside their usual practice and comfort zone, such as those from UCL who volunteered to step up and help the NHS at a time of great need.

Along with clinically trained academics, UCL’s senior medical students were given the opportunity to help and dozens of other highly skilled scientists working in UCL labs with relevant transferrable skills were also freed up.

Professor David Lomas, UCL Vice Provost (Health), had his portrait shot for the essay and said: “At the start of the pandemic, UCL took the decision to release all their clinical staff from academic and research responsibilities, in order to staff hospitals. This is all about teamwork, putting others first and doing the right thing. It is a vocation.”

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