COVID-19 Bulletin: Tuesday 5 January
January 5, 2021
Operational update in relation to new lockdown
It won’t come as a surprise to most of you that we have today in our hospitals the highest number of patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 than at any time during the pandemic. Our services have been pressured for some time, particularly our Critical Care Services which have expanded to meet the need to care for critically ill patients. Our hospital wards are caring for increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients along with people who are unwell with non COVID related illnesses. Last night’s national lockdown announcement reflects the position of NHS services and is intended to reduce and slow the transmission of the virus so that fewer people get acutely ill. However, it will be some weeks before we begin to see a reduction in patients who need our care, and, we saw during the second wave that the reduction is much slower than that experienced as a result of the March 2020 lockdown.
We are running today as an internal critical incident so that we can urgently act to safely care for our patients who need our help now. We are following our COVID-19 surge plan which means that, from today and over the next few days we will need to make changes to how we work, to focus on the provision of safe care for acute patients. This may mean that we need to ask staff to work in a different way to sustain safe services and support staff wellbeing. We are grateful for your support during this challenging time and any change in working conditions you may be asked to make given the current difficult circumstances.
Working with partners
We continue to work with partners across the Black Country and Birmingham to ensure our patients get the right care. This means close working with care homes and social care teams to safely discharge those patients who no longer need to be in an acute hospital bed. It also means ensuring that we can transfer ITU patients to other areas that have more capacity as we are currently in our expanded bed base for critical care.
Changes to routine care
We are reviewing whether we need to reduce our non-urgent clinic appointments and some diagnostics as well as routine surgery. Much of this we have already postponed but we need more of our clinicians to support our inpatient hospital work right now, rather than outpatient activity. Clinicians may be asked to work in different areas and will be contacted individually where this is the case. Wherever staff are asked to be redeployed they will get the right training and support. Thank you to all the reservists who have stepped up to date and continue to work in other clinical areas. To read about the role of a reservist and the support that is provided to see if you are able to help, please click here.
Pictured at their training today are: (left to right) Laser Nurse Amrita Nar, Staff nurse Lorena Macarulay, Staff Nurse Liz Williams, Theatre Practitioner Stacey Hughes, Staff Nurse Renea Wickham with intensive care nurse training staff – Sister Shakila Rasool and Professional Development Nurse Sharon Clarke.
School Closures
As announced by the Prime Minister all colleges, primary (reception years onwards) and secondary schools will remain open for vulnerable and children of critical care workers. All other children will be required to learn remotely at home until February half term. Critical workers are defined as those whose work is critical to the coronavirus (COVID19) and EU transition response include those who work in health and social care and in other key sectors. Within the Health and Social care sectors this includes but is not limited to doctors, nurses, midwives, paramedics, social workers, care workers, and other frontline health and social care staff including volunteers; the support and specialist staff required to maintain the UK’s health and social care sector; those working as part of the health and social care supply chain, including producers and distributors of medicines and medical and personal protective equipment. Should any member of staff require a letter from the Trust to provide as evidence of key/critical care worker status please approach your line manager or the HR team via swbh.hr-advice-for-covid-19@nhs.net Sandwell Day Nursery will continue to operate normally for all its current users, though this will be kept under review based upon usage and its ability to offer places to SWB critical workers.
Pressing ahead with the vaccination programme
We continue to press ahead with our vaccination programme at the Whiteheath Medical Centre and our Sandwell Hospital hub at the education centre. A further hospital hub based at the cardiac rehab gym on City site in partnership with three primary care networks across West Birmingham is due to open to patients on Thursday morning. We have already been vaccinating patients who are over 80 and staff who are working in high risk areas or themselves are identified as medium / high risk following their covid risk assessments. You will be contacted when it is your turn to be vaccinated. In line with national guidance changing, we are now booking second vaccinations up to 12 weeks after your first jab while considering rearranging appointments for those who are already booked for their second jab. More information to follow shortly. Next Tuesday at 12noon we will be running a staff Q&A session where you can learn more about the different vaccines and post any questions you may have. Please watch the video below for more information about our exciting collaboration with the PCNs. Pictured as work is continuing on setting up the clinic are Dottie Tipton, Trust Primary Care Liaison Manager, and Helen Kilminster, Pharmacist and People’s Health Partnership Clinical Director.
Annual leave, study leave and SPA time
Due to the high levels of patient admissions, we are reviewing the situation as regards pre booked study leave and SPA time that is scheduled up to the end of February. At present we are not asking you to cancel any of your annual leave but it is possible that we may ask you to either reduce it or take it at another time. Your groups are working through the staffing levels that are needed and will talk to you directly about this.
PPE
We continue to have good supply of PPE. Please make sure that you are aware of the requirements for the area you are working in, as well as your own risk assessment and the PPE requirements for the procedures you are carrying out. The guidance is displayed on the doors of all ward areas.
Note to all colleagues: Please be aware that FFP3 Unvalved 1863 and 9330 masks are the same despite having different numbers. This means you can use either 1863 or 9330 if you are fit tested on either. For further details please see 3M FFP3 Unvalved information sheet.