COVID-19 Bulletin: Friday 15 October – Focus on infection prevention and control

October 15, 2021

Numbers not statistics: This week (last week)

1. New: Sticking to the safe ways of working

You will notice that our bulletin this week is focussed solely on infection prevention and control (IPC) messages. This is to demonstrate how important our procedures are to ensure the safety of our colleagues, patients and visitors.

COVID-19 has not gone away, and we cannot afford to let strict infection control standards drop because we forget to follow them, or feel precautions are not necessary. There can be a devastating effect to dropping our guard, leading to an outbreak among those most vulnerable.

Our procedures are tried and tested and have been put in place to protect you and protect those we are responsible for. Please maintain your vigilance, follow the rules and do not hesitate in challenging those who forget or ignore IPC procedures. Our Medical Director Dr David Carruthers has recorded a short video to remind you of the key points, and IPC Lead Julie Booth talks about the importance of challenging one another as we all work together to make our Trust a safer place. We are expecting an external inspection soon of our IPC procedures, so please do not be the ward or area that lets us down. To remind you here are the key points:

Seven rules of Infection Control:

1. Hand Hygiene: Make sure you take the time to practice good hand hygiene, this means make sure your sleeves are rolled up, rings and watches off and you take the time to carefully wash your hands.
2. Wear your face masks: It’s critical to ensure that when you are in shared areas and in clinical spaces you wear your face masks and ensure you take the time to put them on properly, ensuring a good seal around the masks.
3. Bare below the elbows: Good hand hygiene and safe care can only be achieved by being bare below the elbows. This means that you must not wear watches or bracelets or jewellery that interferes with your ability to effectively wash your hands. This also includes removing ties, lanyards and accessories that pose a cross contamination risk moving from patient to patient.
4. Right PPE in the right environment: Make sure you take the time to wear the right PPE suitable for the task you are undertaking, the area you are working in and your own risk assessment.
5. Test yourself for COVID-19 regularly: Weekly testing for COVID-19 is available for all staff which involves a painless saliva sample being submitted. This can provide you with proof and assurance that you are COVID-19 free and proof that your infection control practices are successfully keeping you safe from harm.
6. Regular patient swabbing is critical to providing the right care: It’s important that colleagues involved in the delivery of clinical care take the time to understand the swabbing pathways in use. These documents describe in details the schedules of swabbing that should apply to each patient depending on their circumstances. Swabbing ensures we are able to provide the right care to patients as well as ensuring that we are able to protect colleagues and patients around them.
7. Clean equipment is key to being able to provide safe and effective care: Follow the rules of the Use it, Clean It, Store it programme to continue providing safe care to our patients.

2. Updated: Use it, clean it, store it

The regular cleaning of shared patient equipment is key to reducing the risk of cross infection between patients and staff.  Patient and staff equipment can harbour potentially harmful bacteria that is unseen to the naked eye.

By performing regular cleaning of equipment and using the green ‘I am clean’ labels  this will help to give both patients and our staff, confidence that equipment is clean and ready for use!

Remember that you need to clean patient equipment after every use and between each patient.

To keep equipment fully charged or to help to keep your ward or area neat and tidy, once you have cleaned, store it in the appropriate place.

So the next time you use a work station on wheels or a dinamap… clean it and store it….use it clean it store it!

3. Updated: Keeping yourself safe around our Trust – Knowing what PPE to wear

It is important that colleagues take the time to understand what this means for their personal protective equipment and working practices.

Red Areas: These remain and represent Very High Risk and High Risk areas where patients with confirmed cases of COVID-19 are being treated or, alternatively, where aerosol generating procedures are being undertaken. The poster also clarifies when a clinical staff member should and shouldn’t be bare below the elbows.

Amber Areas: The photograph shows the clinician is now wearing eye protection in addition to a mask, apron and gloves. It just unifies our classifications with those nationally.

Green Areas: These are areas of low risk where patients have been self-isolating prior to attending or may have had a negative COVID-19 swab result.

Protect yourself and protect others

Colleagues should strive to strictly follow the guidance on the PPE posters, ensuring at all times you adhere to the correct PPE for the area you are in.

Where staff and patients are seen to be disregarding infection control practices, colleagues should feel confident to respectfully challenge, remind and support those to meet the infection control guidelines.

Enhanced PPE is available for any colleague whose risk assessment requires it.

To remind you of your obligations see the guidance on Connect.

4. Updated: How to safely package your saliva test

Many of you have signed up to the weekly saliva (LAMP) testing programme – which is a speedy and accurate way of determining whether you have COVID-19. Colleagues should be aware that with an increase in other respiratory viruses, regular testing can further reassure you of the nature of any upper respiratory illness you have, and sticking with IPC guidance will reduce the spread to your colleagues.

You can book a kit collection slot for the weekly test which simply requires you to spit into a tube in the morning before you brush your teeth or later in the morning but you must not have consumed anything for at least an hour before taking your test.

When you arrive at work, you can deposit your sample into a red collection box. Many of these are positioned around our acute and community sites.

Here’s a pictorial guide on how to package your swab:

Uptake of the weekly saliva test is monitored to ensure we are doing everything we can to protect our patients, the public and each other.

You can also watch a video on how to do your saliva test here.

The latest data by group is below:

5. Reminder: Boost your immunity this winter

With the winter months fast approaching, it’s more important now than ever to protect yourself against flu and COVID.

Colleagues can rest assured that both vaccinations are perfectly safe to have together. Should you not wish to have both vaccines at the same time you can split your vaccinations by booking two separate appointments or just make it clear when you attend a walk in clinic.

COVID-19 boosters will be Pfizer booster vaccines and those eligible include those who have had their second COVID-19 vaccine (including Pfizer or Astra Zeneca) and have no contraindications to the Pfizer vaccination.

Please be aware that there must be at least 6 months (180 days) between your second dose and booster dose of your COVID-19 vaccination.

How to get your vaccinations:

Walk in: Colleagues can pop into any of our vaccination clinics this week and a member of our clinical team will be on hand to support you getting your vaccinations. You can walk in to either Sandwell or City vaccination hub seven days a week 8am-1pm and 2-6pm.

Book an appointment:

Using our easy self-booking system you can arrange an appointment to have your vaccinations at a time & date to suit you. You need your NHS number to book which you can find on the NHS app or request by following the link here (add link to national website)

Click here for the online booking system to register for your jab – all available time slots will be listed here.

 6. Reminder: Do you need a disposable FFP3 masks?

If you require a disposable FFP3 mask please call stores on ext. 4938 (City) or ext. 2824 (Sandwell).

If you are in charge of a clinical area, please ensure you have an ample supply of these masks.

Note: We must remind colleagues they should not be reliant on their silicone mask only.

If you have not been fit tested for a disposable masks please book an appointment via ESR. If you have issues booking through ESR, please call ext. 5195.