COVID-19 Bulletin: Sunday 10 May
May 10, 2020
This is our every night bulletin. Please use this bulletin and cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide your actions. Throughout May we are determined to reduce avoidable harm and death in the people we are taking care of. Kindness remains the guiding principle of all the actions in our work to tackle the virus – kindness in how we look after patients, visitors, and one another.
A huge thank you to everyone working within our Red Areas. We still have multiple wards and much of our critical care units looking after people with COVID-19. Coming into work, while others talk about going back to work, in these circumstances is terribly difficult. Though most patients with the virus survive, very many do not. We will use our QIHD time on Wednesday to consider what more we could do to improve the chances each person has of recovering in our care.
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 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 |
| 1116
(1116) |
727
(726) |
313
(312) |
105
(105) |
76
(78) |
—
(605) |
1. Shape your future at Wednesday’s QIHD
The Trust’s final plan for Restoration and Recovery is being developed this month for approval at June’s Trust Board. There will be #nogoingback so please do grab this chance to say what works best in your view, both for your team and for our patients. QIHD is the place where teams debate the evidence, consider ideas for improvement, and discuss future plans. Details of the topics under discussion will come out tomorrow, but make sure you know the WebEx details for your team and find some time to contribute.
2. Big Clean Up continues at Rowley Regis
Our programme is all about restoring public confidence in care in order to ensure that those in need seek help. This will help us to get moving with services like endoscopy, cardiac physiology, some surgical procedures and infusion treatments. During May, and through to the end of the summer we expect to be providing services ringfenced for COVID-19 patients, but also restarting our work. Rowley Regis has a specific part to play:
It is our blue and lilac streams for community discharge. But in addition is a major outpatient facility away from an acute hospital setting. Most outpatients will be undertaken by video technology now and in the future, but for those people who need to attend a site Rowley will play a key role in our future.
You will find new hand hygiene requirements on entry and a general ‘tight regime’ around infection prevention and control across our sites. Please work with staff implementing those rules, they are there to protect us and they apply to everyone. Let’s not let the green brigades’ hard work be wasted!
3. Testing patients for COVID-19: Use the correct swab
It helps to follow the correct process for sampling of swabs from our patients. This will ensure that the swabs are able to be processed by the labs so that results are returned quickly and swabs are not wasted.
The pathway sets out clearly who should be swabbed, which swabs to use, how to take a sample, and the arrangements to collect and transport the specimens. Follow the directions on the swab guidance document linked below.
4. Smoking– red lines, COVID-19 and uniforms…
Since July 1 2019 the Trust has been Smokefree, because smoking kills. We know that research on COVID-19 recovery suggests that smoking is a contributory factor to people who struggle to recover. So there is every reason to stay away from smoking or to switch to vaping.
If you cannot stop smoking then you have to walk over the Red Lines that surround our sites. In addition, if you wear uniform that must be covered up. We have seen growing numbers of complaints about people standing in uniform on the street smoking and are working with local authorities on their powers to enforce further bans. Wearing our uniform on the street, smoking, breaks our health and our infection control policies. Please don’t let your colleagues down.
5. Social distancing – Don’t stand so close to me
Two metres apart. In lunch queues. On garden benches. In your office. During handover. On the bus. It’s ok to challenge people standing too close to you.
You may work in an environment where you feel social distancing is almost impossible. For example, the room where you do handover in critical care may be too small for the number of people now working there. Speak up. Ask your line manager what can be done, make your suggestions or get in touch with Rachel Barlow or Toby Lewis. We want to find solutions where you work.
Some of the team have developed a short film just to illustrate the two metre rule. Enjoy!
Anyone working from home is also asked to take 10 minutes to complete this short survey to share your views and ideas on what has worked well and what has been difficult. This will help to inform the Trust’s future home working guidance. https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/SWBWFH2020