COVID-19 Bulletin: Saturday 30 May

May 30, 2020

This is our seven days a week bulletin. Please use this bulletin and cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide your actions. Throughout June we are determined to reduce avoidable harm and death in the people we are taking care of. Kindness remains the guiding principle of all the actions in our work to tackle the virus – kindness in how we look after patients, visitors, and one another.

Thank you to everyone working this weekend, so diligently, to look all our patients, perhaps particularly those with COVID-19. Letters are now going to those who have been redeployed to outline when you will be able to return to your job. We continue to have more patients affected by the virus than many other local hospitals, and so you should not be surprised if our pattern of return is slower than neighbours. Social distancing in the community, the take up of trace arrangements, and the spread of antibody testing will determine how we go forward over coming weeks to restart services that we stood down in March.

Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (Yesterday’s totals)

Number of our patients confirmed with COVID-19 during the pandemic

Number of positive COVID-19 patients who have been discharged during the pandemic

Number of patients who have died in our hospitals who tested positive for COVID-19 during the pandemic

Number of patients entered by the Trust into a COVID-19 research trial to date

Number of COVID-19 positive patients who are inpatients with us today

Number of our staff absent due to ill-health or isolation today

1273

(1267)

834
(832)

355

(354)

137

(136)

(81)

–

(593)

Antibody testing – you can book your appointment this weekend

You can now book yourself an antibody test for COVID-19 with tests starting on Monday 1 June at the Trust. Any staff member can arrange a blood test, whether you have previously had a positive or negative test result for COVID-19 or no COVID-19 test previously. For the test to be accurate you must have no COVID-19 symptoms and be symptom-free for at least 21 days.

The presence of antibodies is no guarantee against catching or spreading COVID-19 so it remains really important to wash hands thoroughly on a regular basis and maintain social distancing both in the workplace and at home, regardless of the results of your antibody test.

To book a test please call 0121 507 6104 and select option 2 when prompted.

Results of your test will be e-mailed to you from occupational health within 72 hours of having the test. You can find out more in this questions and answers document. For more information please click here.

2. Did you know you can get fit tested on the weekend?

PPE stocks are ever changing as stocks are replenished and new masks become available. Currently we are running low on Alpha masks which is why it is critical that colleagues stay up to date with the availability of masks that they have been fit tested for.

Should you need to be fit tested clinics are available this weekend between 8am and 8pm. To book yourself into one of the fit testing clinics simply call 0121 507 5050 to book an appointment.

3. COVID-19 Preprint Repository now available

Our library team remain hard at work bringing you all the latest updates and information relating to COVID-19 based on clinical evidence. If you are looking into COVID-19 and want recent research information you can access medRxiv:

medRxiv (pronounced “med-archive”) is a free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences. The medRxiv preprint repository listing all the COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 research has been launched for easy access for all healthcare researchers https://connect.medrxiv.org/relate/content/181

The Library page on Connect has a new section on COVID-19 evidence updates and the team are keen to help with any COVID-19 related literature searches. Please email your topic request to swbh.library@nhs.net.

4. Continue to maintain social distancing! Don’t stand so close to me…

Though we are past the first peak of COVID-19, social distancing remains paramount both in the workplace and at home. Social distancing is an effective way to help slow down the spread of COVID-19 thus keeping us safe.

Remember: Social distancing only works if everyone participates. Slowing down the spread of COVID-19 will help save thousands of lives – we are all responsible for protecting those at higher risk of COVID-19.

5. Unity update for COVID-19: Diagnosis code

Informatics has confirmed that, thanks to an update to the SNOMED CT Clinical Terms library, COVID-19 is now available as a diagnosis.

The new ‘COVID-19’ term has been placed into the notifiable disease folder in Unity, this replaces the previously used phrasing “Disease caused by 2019 novel Coronavirus”.

Please note: This diagnosis is not yet available for ED as the UK ED Diagnosis Subset has not yet been updated.