COVID-19 Bulletin Friday 30 April

April 30, 2021

Number not statistics: This week (last week)

1. New: COVID-19 situation in India

The COVID-19 situation in India is severe and distressing. Many colleagues have loved ones overseas and are naturally extremely concerned about their wellbeing.

• For staff who wish to travel you are advised that overseas travel is not permitted other than for exceptional circumstances. The guidance from the UK government on travel to India is here. Travel must be discussed with your line manager.
• For staff who are in India, please keep in touch with your line manager about your circumstances and let them know if you need help.

Make sure you talk to people if you are worried. We have a range of support on offer for colleagues including The Wellbeing Sanctuary where you can talk to someone confidentially about your concerns in a relaxing space. For confidential counselling please call 0800 06 96 222. A chat in confidence can also be booked with the Wellbeing Sanctuary by calling 0121 507 5886.

Many of you have been asking how you can best support the crisis in India. NHS England are coordinating a response from the NHS including donations of equipment and remote clinical support. Our Trust is actively engaged in these discussions and arrangements. The British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO) have joined up with Doctors’ Association UK, APNA NHS and Akshaya Patra to fundraise for oxygen provision, free food for all in need and expert medical help through tele consulting / advice. To read more and donate please click here.

We have also added a translated voiceover to our awake proning video through the kindness of Dr Anand Arora, Consultant in Intensive Care and Anaesthesics. On providing the translation and voice over he commented: “Awake proning can be life-saving, especially when there is a resource crunch and lack of oxygen supply and hospital beds. It is being followed by those infected in India at home because of the current terrible situation. I  hope that this video will reach those who are unable to get to hospital and that ultimately it saves lives. I would urge colleagues to share this so we can get instructions on how to carry out this important technique out there.”

We have shared the video on our Twitter feed @SWBHnhs if you wish to retweet or please see it below.

2. New: Thank you vaccination hub

The Trust would like to say a huge thank you to all clinical colleagues at both City and Sandwell who have helped vaccinate patients and staff throughout the pandemic with both their first and second doses of the Pfizer – BioNTech jab. We would also like to thanks all of the operational staff who helped set up the hubs to ensure trained colleagues were able to vaccinate all who attended.

As you may be aware the vaccination hubs across our hospital sites closed earlier this week.

Still need your vaccine?

Tipton Sports Academy, Wednesbury Road, is available as a destination for you to get your first dose of the Astra-Zeneca vaccine with the hub running Monday to Sunday, 8am to 7pm. Book your slot via the national booking website.  Alternatively you can be vaccinated local to where you live – you can book yourself in via the national booking website

3. New: Welcome back – SWB to welcome back visitors on our stroke ward

From next week, we will begin a phased trial where we will slowly start to welcome visitors back onto our stroke ward, Newton 4.

All visitors will need to call ahead to relevant wards to book an appointment slot to visit. During this call visitors should be screened to ensure they do not have any COVID-19 symptoms. All visitors must wear a mask when on site. General patient visits will last a maximum of 30 minutes and should be limited to one visitor per patient.

Note: In line with national guidance, general visiting will only be allowed for patients that have been in the hospital for seven days or more.

We’d like to remind colleagues that there are exceptional circumstances where visiting is allowed in all areas, for example for young patients, patients who lack mental capacity and patients who are at the end of their life. For these patients it is important that we are able to safely facilitate visiting, so please if in doubt ask your group for advice.

It is essential to note that even for these groups visiting is NOT ALLOWED by anyone who is COVID-19 symptomatic or self-isolating, regardless of the circumstances.

It is strongly advised you arrive 15 minutes before your visiting time. The staff at the entrance will provide you with a face covering. Please ensure you wear this and keep your face and nose covered at all times. PLEASE DO NOT ATTEND IF YOU OR ANYONE YOU LIVE WITH ARE SYMPTOMATIC FOR COVID-19 OR HAVE HAD A POSITIVE SWAB IN THE PAST 14 DAYS.

Outside the ward you will be greeted by a staff member who will take your details for test and trace, ask you COVID screening questions, and ask you to sanitise your hands. The staff member will allow you onto the ward once your time slot has begun. You will be socially distanced from other visitors to the ward. Please maintain a 2m distance from staff and other visitors at all times. You must not use bathroom facilities on the ward. At the end of your time slot, you will be politely asked to leave the ward so that we can allow more visitors onto the ward to see their families.

4. New: Cardiac Rehab SOP for face to face exercise classes

As the number of COVID infections fall, the Trust has been looking at ways of restarting some of the services which we had to pause during the pandemic. One service which we are restarting safely next week is cardiac rehab, which has had a new Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and risk assessment signed off at tactical. Please see the SOP here.

In order to minimise the risk of COVID-19 infection, patients should only be invited for face-to-face exercise classes following discussion at the Cardiac Rehabilitation MDT. All patients who have been sent an appointment to attend the gym for a face-to-face exercise session should be contacted the day before and screened for symptoms of COVID-19. Patients must attend their appointment alone, unless a translator or a carer is needed. Should the latter be necessary, the patient will attend one-to-one classes instead of group based classes. Please see the risk assessment here.

5. New: Elective swabbing pathway

Colleagues should be aware that a new elective swabbing pathway has been signed off by tactical this week. The purpose of it is to define the Covid-19 swabbing pathway for patients attending green wards for elective surgery. All patients are instructed to adhere to social distancing for seven days prior to their admission, and must self-isolate from the point of having their covid swab. All patients must have a telephone pre-assessment appointment booked and for those who require an interpreter or carers to attend with them (e.g. if patient has Dementia/learning difficulties) then these patients must be booked a face to face pre-op appointment at Rowley Regis Hospital. You can view the full document by clicking here.

6. New: Change to front door checking arrangements

Since early in the pandemic when we paused visiting, we introduced an enhanced security presence on our entrances, to ensure people were adhering to new PPE rules. As time has passed, the requirement for wearing PPE and practising good hand hygiene has become embedded in behaviour, so the need for security in addition to PPE staff is no longer required and will be stood down from next week for all but ED entrances (these areas will reviewed again at the end of May.) The eventual aim is to move to purely self-serve stations across the Trust, and we are looking at a number of options of how to ensure we manage this well, including ensuring the supply is kept stocked. Until we move completely to self-serve, our PPE staff will remain in situ. On standing down security from stationary positions on our entrances we will increase the number of foot patrols and visibility of security officers.

7. Reminder: Ensure you are doing your regular LAMP test – Book your slot to collect your testing kit now

It is now essential to make sure you are completing your weekly LAMP tests. This is to identify any asymptomatic cases quickly. LAMP is a speedy and reliable COVID-19 test which requires you to collect a saliva sample once a week in the morning before you brush your teeth or have your breakfast or an hour after eating.

When you arrive at work, you can deposit your sample into a collection box – and you’ll receive your result via text message.

We’ve produced this video guide which shows how to carry out the test. Click thumbnail below to watch the film:

We must remind everyone that LAMP testing is open to both clinical and non-clinical colleagues. It is vital that we continue to test despite colleagues having had the COVID vaccination and infection rates starting to drop.

Please drop off your sample into phlebotomy department Monday – Friday from 7.30am – 3.30pm in the following locations:

• OPD first floor Corridor D Sandwell Site
• Ground floor BTC
• Ground floor Rowley Regis Hospital
• First floor Neptune Health Park
• Second floor Lyng Health and Social Care Centre
• Victoria Health Centre
• Oldbury Health Centre

Alternatively you can drop off your samples in the LAMP collection bins at Sandwell outside the Bryan Knight Suite, outside pathology or A&E.

At City, the LAMP collection bins can be found outside pharmacy main spine, outside pathology and A&E.

Further information on LAMP testing can be found in the attached FAQs.