COVID-19 bulletin: Saturday 4 April
April 4, 2020
This is our once a day bulletin. This will take all national and professional 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 our plans.
The Trust has some more capacity to undertake swab tests over the next 72 hours for symptomatic staff and index cases (i.e. adult family members) causing you to self-isolate. If you could be available please contact 07816992873 or 07970428995. We need your car registration too!
1. Changes in Trust service provision
We have been working hard to maintain services for those most in need whilst creating new capacity (over 140 beds and 4 times the scale of ITU) that our patients will need in the weeks ahead. If you are uncertain about which services are where, which have changed, or whether new referral pathways are in place, you can either search on Connect or contact your Group Director of Operations.
No services have closed to referrals. All requests for our care will be logged, triaged, and managed according to clinical prioritisation. Some services have moved site – ENT and urology are now largely based at Sandwell. Serenity has moved, with midwife led births taking place through our delivery suite. Leasowes has become wholly an end of life centre with community wards moving to expand Rowley Regis. Wards remain designated red or blue. The up to date register of that is maintained on the opening page of Connect.
On Sunday 5th arrangements for paediatric A&E attendances change on both acute sites. In the days before Easter we relocate Gynae-Cancer Centre, and make changes to Haematology. This is part of work to make sure that care ‘beyond’ Covid-19 continues.
2. Getting paid in the month ahead
Staff, both substantive, and bank workers, are working in new locations. Many are moving location even within a week. This is creating anxiety that payments may be delayed or made late. We are working to put in place additional checks to support you getting the right pay at the end of April. This is complex with many more staff working this Bank Holiday, others being paid new or critical rates in March, and revised bank rates (£2hr) and for some nurses (£4.50hr) who work a block of shifts. Please be assured any mistakes will be looked into and rectified.
Managers are asked to make sure that shifts are verified for March. Revised arrangements for verification in April, easing the burden of doing that, will be announced next week. We want to make sure people working hard are paid right and on time.
3. Updated PPE guidance
New posters will be issued over the next two days and posted Trust-wide reinforcing the PPE guidance published by the Trust over the last week. The video made by Dr Mark Anderson has been widely shared. Largely latest PHE guidance has caught up with us!
We have made one interim and immediate change to our policy. This will be further reviewed on Wednesday 8th. In Red Areas you only need to wear FFP3 masks when in close and active contact with patients (within 1m of those at risk of deterioration). In all other red circumstances we now recommend wearing a visor and surgical face mask, along with gloves and apron.
4. Confidentiality reminder
All of us know someone who is isolating for Covid-19 or may know someone being treated. That includes those being in our Trust and nearby. This is an incredibly distressing time for everyone.
Sadly it is also a time when media attention is on us all and NHS workers social media accounts are studied by journalists and others. It is timely to reiterate the need not to be source of breaching any families’ confidentiality at this or any time. Please consider the time needed to grieve of those we look after. This process of grief may be different to your experience in your career, because many are dying without all of their loved ones present. This can evoke different and complex reactions. That is why the Trust has put in place extensive grief and bereavement support for our workforce and those we look after as patients.
5. Join 140 colleagues and get into a hotel soon please
We have been asking you to think about relocating into one of our hotel rooms. These are great options to protect those you share a home with, and to help ensure you are able to work as we tackle Covid-19. You can access a hotel easily by emailing swbh.hotel-booking@nhs.net. And you can see more information about the hotels on offer here . If you receive a letter or email from us in the day ahead, please consider this option very seriously. If you do not get a letter – you can still self-nominate for a hotel.