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Chief Executive’s Message – Friday 14 January

January 14, 2022

Firstly, my sincere apologies to those colleagues who were expecting to catch up with me this morning at City Hospital during one of my regular open coffee sessions. The M6 traffic conspired against me and resulted in a two hour journey to work meaning that I was over an hour late. I am sorry if you were hoping to meet with me this morning. Do check out the other sessions coming up  or drop me an email if you have a more urgent matter you would like to discuss.

You will see in our regular COVID-19 bulletins that there is quite a lot changing at present as we continue to respond to the impact of the pandemic and the rapid transmission of the Omicron variant. In order to help clarify our essential messages I have highlighted these important changes below:

  1. Changes to PPE: FFP3 masks are now standard on our inpatient wards when providing direct clinical care. Please ensure you follow this enhanced IPC guidance to keep yourselves and your patients safe.
  2. Changes to self-isolation and staff testing: Regular testing (LAMP or LFT) remains mandatory. There are some changes to the length of self-isolation periods following having COVID-19 and if you are vaccinated and a contact of a COVID-19 positive case. Make sure you know the latest rules. Our workforce team and Trust managers will be contacting people who are off work isolating to make sure we know your expected date of return so that we can plan for staff absences. Reducing self-isolation is helping us have better staffed teams in place although it still remain challenging in many areas.
  3. Mask wearing for inpatients: We have now mandated mask wearing for inpatients other than when eating, drinking and sleeping or for those who are clinically exempt. Please ensure that your patients follow this new requirement.
  4. Limiting visiting: Visiting is once more restricted in our ward areas apart from for one parent / guardian with a child, those at end of life, birthing partners during labour and for those who lack mental capacity.
  5. Mandatory vaccination: The new national legislation requiring all healthcare workers to be doubly vaccinated comes into force on 1 April. It is therefore essential that all SWB staff have their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine by 3 February in order to ensure that you are fully vaccinated in time. Letters are going out now to all staff where we have no record of your vaccination status. Please respond so we can update our records. If you have concerns join one of our Q&A sessions and if you are not yet vaccinated please do so asap. On site clinics are running daily and you can walk-in or book an appointment.

More detail around these key points can be found in our COVID-19 bulletins and on Connect. I know it is extremely pressured across our services at present, but we are, as a system, seeing demand for care track along the base case, rather than the medium or worse case which is good news.

Thank you for your continued support as we continue to work hard to manage COVID-19 patients safely in the community and in our hospitals.

Richard Beeken