COVID-19 bulletin: Friday 27 March
March 27, 2020
The Trust is now publishing a daily bulletin. This will take all guidance and information and tell you which changes we are implementing when and how. Please use this bulletin and daily cascade arrangements within clinical groups to guide local action. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing these changes.
1. Red and blue areas, PPE availability and guidance
Across our sites it should now be clear which areas are red, with some Covid-19 positive patients cared for within, and those that are blue, with lower risk of Covid patients within. Which wards are red will continue to grow at pace. The same model is used across critical care and we are opening a further ICU ward on D16 which will give us more ‘red’ capacity.
All sites now have our 25th March PPE guidance, which go further than PHE guidance in a few respects. Further, revised guidance from PHE is expected and when that arrives we will review that and match it to supply orders we are allowed to make. It is really important that PPE is used in line with our current guidance as that is the basis on which we are permitted stock.
2. Testing of staff and use of hotels
The Trust suspended our staff testing programme earlier this week. Clearly national discussions continue to try and get staff testing in place. Our expectation remains that it will be the end of next week before a local programme is put in place. We would be thrilled if something is brought on line sooner and are ourselves exploring every commercial idea.
Meanwhile, it is really important that staff needed to care for patients in our sites take up the offer of hotel accommodation through the Trust. Feedback from clinical colleagues at all levels of seniority is really positive about the options available, and the pace of moves. This weekend please consider within your household whether this something you need to try. For more information and to reserve your room please email swbh.hotel-booking@nhs.net
3. Use of video technology in clinical practice
Over the last week we have implemented two key changes to our normal practices of care. Firstly, visiting for inpatients has moved to a phone or video enabled consultation. It is really important, as #stayhome becomes the norm across our country that we get used to promoting this approach with our inpatients. Meanwhile, we have moved most outpatient consultations onto a remote only basis. This will continue only until our staffing plan requires those same clinicians to transfer to wholly inpatient practice. Nonetheless, the technology is used now and may be used “after” Covid-19, so it is worth engaging with it.
Click here for details of drop in sessions on the technology with virtual sessions planned for next week.
Over the next few days we will also pilot both technology and simulation arrangements to support consultation with inpatients from your home or self-isolating settings. This is likely to be something that we need to utilise as staffing numbers become more challenging in a fortnight’s time.
4. Taking care to stay well
This is an intensely challenging time to work in any role in our Trust. We have a range of wellbeing support in place for individuals and teams. That includes psychological support, recognising the immediate, and potentially long term effects, of working in unfamiliar environments, or of working more difficult shifts patterns, or of working with higher rates of harm, including elevated mortality. Deaths in our care will rise above what has been true before, and deaths will occur in the care of teams where ordinarily that would be a very, very rare event. It is important that being stoic does not do harm, and so we would encourage everyone to consider the support on offer.
Please see link below to access our dedicated COVID-19 health and wellbeing page which offers multiple resources and advice.
You can also access our COVID-19 health and wellbeing area through our myConnect app in the “Health and Wellbeing” tab. myConnect is compatible with both iPhones and Android handsets, and is available to download from the Apple Appstore as well as the Google Playstore, simply search for ‘SWBH MyConnect’.
5. Getting into work and parking with us
For some days now our parking barriers have been raised, and from Wednesday April 1st parking formally becomes free for the duration of the Covid-19 period. Please do take advantage of this, but remember to park only in designated bays. Fines and tickets will be enforced for parking which breaches those rules in the interests of our collective wellbeing.
Bus and rail services are changing. And Trust travel arrangements must respect social distancing. Please look on myConnect or on Network West Midlands for details of services. If you expect to be late for work, please contact your manager the day before to discuss how we can work flexibly. We are relying, and your colleagues are too, on all of us making it in.