COVID-19 Bulletin: Thursday 23 April
April 23, 2020
This is our once a night bulletin. Please use this bulletin and daily cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide local action. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing our plans. It is also our way of keeping in touch with shielders, home workers, part-timers and volunteers. You are on the team. Thank you!
Tonight the country again claps for carers at 8pm. If you have chance, do get 2 metres away from someone, and play your part (if you wish). We are actively discouraging organisations and partners from travelling to our sites to commemorate this event, as that is an unnecessary journey! Let’s make a decent noise so everyone can hear us at home – #stayhomesavelives
Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (Yesterday’s totals)
| Number of our patients confirmed with COVID-19 during the Pandemic | Number of positive COVID-19 positive patients who have been discharged during the Pandemic | Number of patients who have died in our hospitals who tested positive for COVID-19 during the Pandemic | Number of patients entered by the Trust into a COVID-19 research trial to date | Number of COVID-19 positive patients who are inpatients with us today | Number of our staff absent due to ill-health or isolation today |
| 885 (874) | 489 (478) | 262 (259) | 69 (65) | 134 (137) | 650 (602) |
- Wellness packs/goody bags for colleagues
Over the past three weeks we have distributed around 1500 wellness packs for colleague at Sandwell, Leasowes, community sites, City, our general practices, and Rowley Regis. These have been taken to departments by your colleagues and our volunteers. A gentle reminder that these are for the benefit of all staff who are working in patient areas. Don’t be a hoarder, this is one thing it is ok to spread!
We have gratefully received further donations of water, juice, hand cream, lip balm, energy bars and more from local businesses and other organisations that means new wellness packs can be distributed over the next week. Please ensure these are shared with all members of the team when they are received. This includes our cleaners, porters, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, therapists and other colleagues. Everyone matters!
2. Continuing to test staff and public sector colleagues
Key worker access to testing at the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital site office car park continues with the service currently being run by the private sector.
Our latest step is that non-NHS public sector and voluntary sector staff can now attend without an appointment. There are now opportunities for key workers, as listed on gov.uk to turn up for a test without an appointment. ID checks will be carried out on arrival. From next week they expect to be able to introduce direct online booking for key workers.
Our own testing for NHS staff continues at Little Lane and City Hospital – if you need a test for yourself or a member of your household who has symptoms, you should call 0121 507 2664 and choose option 5. We are also likely to be a pilot study site for asymptomatic testing – keep an eye out for comms this weekend… (test, test, test…)
3. Deferring retirements doe to COVID-19
Many colleague who had planned to retire are now choosing to defer that retirement so that they can continue to work, supporting the NHS at this time.
If you have applied to retire but are not yet in receipt of retirement benefits and would now like to defer your retirement, please email our Pensions Department: deso.kaur@nhs.net with your details. Please include ‘Deferred Retirement’ in the email subject heading. Our team will prioritise this correspondence and cancel the application for retirement. Members will need to make new applications at a future date once they wish to retire. This guidance is useful if you are considering a deferral.
4. Making sure people get care when they need it: Partnership working with WMAS to support patients at home
Some patients remain frightened of attending hospital during this Pandemic, despite our reassurances and emphasis of the importance of getting medical help when it is needed. This includes patients who refuse being taken in an ambulance to one of our hospitals because they are anxious about COVID-19.
In order to best support these patients we have set up a pathway with the ambulance Trust who will inform our contact centre of a refusal to attend hospital. In these cases the patient will be telephoned by a clinician who will be able assess their symptoms and advise them on the next steps for their treatment. The new service, the first in the West Midlands, goes live next week.
5. Outcomes with COVID-19 for our BAME colleagues
Since the start of the Pandemic we have been collecting and analysing the information we have about every patient who has had a test taken and a positive test result. This includes the impact of the care we have provided and the outcome for each patient. Today we had the opportunity to talk through some of this information with Birmingham’s Health and Wellbeing Board at a specially arranged meeting. We compared our data to others in the city, and discussed the fear felt by patients, relatives and BAME staff.
Our data indicates higher risk of poorer outcome with increased age and underlying health conditions, in particular hypertension and diabetes. We continue to review the information on each patient to see how we can best care for and communicate with different patient groups in relation to their risk factors. We will include our latest data in Heartbeat when it comes out next week. It is really important that we are open about our learning and reassure people who have ‘heard things’ or ‘seen videos’ with inaccurate information in our local community.