COVID-19 Bulletin: Friday 24 September

September 24, 2021

1. New: Boost your immunity this winter – flu jabs and COVID-19 boosters now available for colleagues

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

Some of you may have already received text messages from your local primary care inviting you to book your COVID booster. Please be assured that flu jabs and COVID booster doses will be available to all colleagues from Monday 27 September.

Both vaccines are safe to have together and will be available for co-administration in our onsite vaccination hubs. Should you not wish to have both vaccines at the same time this can also be accommodated by booking two separate appointments. 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.

Do you have a question? Click here to read the FAQ document.

Book your jab:

You can book your jab at one of our vaccination clinics. Clinics will be operating at City Vaccination Hub (Sheldon Block) and Sandwell Education Centre. An easy self-booking system is in place: Click here for the online booking system to register for your jab – all available time slots will be listed here.

Note: Peer vaccinators will also be visiting clinical areas to administer flu jabs but due to infection control procedures in place this provision may be limited.

The flu jab and COVID-19 booster is available to all SWB colleagues including students and temporary staff. Flu jabs are only available for Trust employees and you will need your NHS number to register for your vaccines. To find your NHS number, click here.

Receiving your COVID booster/flu jab elsewhere?

If you receive your COVID booster and/or flu vaccination elsewhere please ensure to have your place of work recorded as Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust on the system at the time of vaccination. This will help keep your occupational health records updated and avoid any further chasing for having the jabs.

Remember you can still get your first COVID jab: City Hospital vaccination hub in Sheldon Block is open for those 18 or older who would like their first jab. The hub is open daily for both walk-ins and bookings via the national booking website.

If you have any other questions, contact occupational health on 0121 507 3306.

Boost your immunity this winter – get your flu jab and COVID-19 booster.

2. New: Take advantage of an hour a week for your wellbeing

Did you know that you have the opportunity to use an hour each week to focus on something that helps with wellbeing such as a learning and development activity, reading, walking, a team discussion or any other activity that supports your wellbeing?

The wellbeing hour applies to all colleagues who are employees of the Trust, regardless of their role, department or their location of work.

Frieza Mahmood, Chief People Officer, said: “Wellbeing hour was introduced in June following feedback and suggestions from colleagues in relation to what support they would like to see as part of the recovery process from the pandemic.

“The purpose of wellbeing hour is to create regular time during the working week for colleagues to focus on their wellbeing. Each team is encouraged to nominate one hour per week as a dedicated time for this.

“This hour must be discussed and agreed with the line manager to ensure that we are still able to deliver services with minimal disruption for patients and other colleagues. Activities can be done as a team or individually.

“We recognise that it can be challenging to find time to use the wellbeing hour when teams are so busy, however, we would really encourage colleagues and managers to talk to each other and find the best way to implement it where you work.”

There is so much you could do as part of wellbeing hour including:

• Online yoga
• Going for a walk (by yourself of with colleagues)
• Visiting the library
• Going to the gym
• Visiting the wellbeing sanctuary or one of the wellbeing hubs
• Doing an activity you enjoy.

Full guidance is available by clicking here. In areas that use e-roster, a shift type has been created within the e-rostering system in order for managers to record when colleagues are taking a wellbeing hour.

3. New: Updates to the trauma day case admission pathway

Our trauma day case (patch and plan) green pathway has recently been updated.

The trauma day case model is suitable for patients that are at a low anaesthetic risk, generally fit and well with limited co-morbidities who require surgery that is an approved day surgical procedure and do not otherwise require hospital admission.

These are the latest changes you need to be aware of:

• Trauma day case patients will be treated primarily on a green pathway.
• The trauma coordination team will be allocated five urgent PCR swabs (purple bags) per day that will be collected from pathology by the trauma coordination team. If additional urgent PCR COVID-19 swabs are required, the trauma coordination team will contact infection control and request authorisation for additional swabs.
• In the event swab results are not returned or there is no green capacity, patients will be admitted as an amber patient so as not to delay timely trauma treatment.

Full details about the pathway can be found here.

4. Reminder: LAMP testing keeps us safe

You should all be aware that our weekly saliva weekly testing programme is available to all colleagues. This non-invasive test that allows you to get reliable results on COVID-19 via a pain-free process.

Recently we’ve seen a drop in numbers of tests, and it’s a trend that’s been going on for some time now. If you’re back from some annual leave please make sure you get back in the flow and do your weekly test.

Start today!

You can register for LAMP testing and book in to a kit collection slot for the weekly test, which requires you to spit into a tube in the morning before you brush your teeth or an hour after you have eaten. 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. And within 24-48 hours you will get a text message confidentially sent to you alerting you to your results. For a full list of drop off points and for details on how to register, click here.

This week’s LAMP data group breakdown

5. Reminder: New drug to treat COVID-19 soon to be made available

A new treatment (Ronapreve) which is a neutralising monoclonal antibody treatment will soon be available for inpatients who meet the following criteria.

Hospitalised patients are eligible to be considered for casirivimab and imdevimab (known by its brand name Ronapreve) if:

• SARS-CoV-2 infection is confirmed by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test or where a multidisciplinary team has a high level of confidence that the clinical and/or radiological features suggest that COVID-19 is the most likely diagnosis

AND

• The patient has been hospitalised specifically for the management of acute symptoms of COVID-19

AND

• The patient is negative for baseline serum anti-spike (anti-S) antibodies against SARS-CoV-2

AND:

• EITHER Aged 50 and over; OR aged 12-49 AND determined to be immunocompromised by multi-disciplinary team assessment.

Note: We are expecting the drug to be made available for our admitted patients soon. A pathway is being developed to streamline its use.

6. Reminder: Consultation on mandatory vaccination for frontline health and care staff

A consultation was launched recently on protecting patients by mandating vaccination for frontline health and social care staff in England. It seeks to consult on whether vaccination should be made a condition of deployment for frontline workers in health and care settings.

The government is seeking views on plans for staff in health and care settings in England to be required to have COVID-19 and flu vaccines to protect vulnerable people.

The six-week consultation is looking at whether requirements should apply for health and wider social care workers: those in contact with patients and people receiving care. It would mean only those who are fully vaccinated, unless medically exempt, could be deployed to deliver health and care services. The consultation will also seek views on whether flu vaccines should be a requirement for health and care workers.

For more information please click here.