Skip to content Skip to main menu Skip to utility menu

COVID-19 bulletin: Thursday 19 March

March 19, 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. Our swabbing services for colleagues are now open and busy

Both our bungalow (near ED) at City and our drive through in the Little Lane car park at Sandwell Hospital are now open. If you have been experiencing symptoms such as a fever (above 37.8 °C) and new cough/consistent cough for over 24 hours you can book an appointment for a test by calling the community contact centre on 0121 507 2664 option 5.

Please do not just turn up! You can ring for appointments from Monday to Friday between 9am and 4pm. You will then either be given an appointment over the phone or you will receive a text with your appointment details.

Appointments are available at Sandwell 7 days a week from 9.30am to 3.45pm and at City, 6 days a week (Monday to Friday) from 9.30am to 3.45pm and Saturday from 9am until 1pm.

If you are unable to attend our sites, arrangements can be made for you to be swabbed at home via the community van. You will get your results as quickly as we possibly can from our occupational health team.

2. Guidance for colleagues given school closures

The government announced yesterday that all schools in England will close on Friday for the foreseeable future. They also said that school provision will be made for essential workers, including many people within the NHS. How that will work is not yet clear to us or educational colleagues. It may be the start of next week before it becomes clear.

Our nursery remains open and we are expanding places within it. We are also trying to create ‘clubs’ to support parents during term time and in the upcoming holidays. If you can get childcare that is satisfactory for your kids we will work with you to address increased costs that you are experiencing.

Your first day off to make arrangements will be classed as carer’s leave. Please contact your line manager. We will work sensibly with you to alter shift patterns and work flexibly to support you to help your family and help our NHS.

If you are a carer for older adults or other family members, we recognise this is a very anxious time. We continue to explore how we can help, and thank you for filling in our carer’s survey which closed yesterday.

3. Personal Protective Equipment (PPE): Follow our guidance  

What PPE to wear is an evolving position. It is important that colleagues are fully aware of the correct PPE to wear.

Please watch this short video which explains what masks to wear:

We have also produced a pictorial about what to wear when dealing with a patient who is positive and one who is suspected.

If in doubt there is information available on Connect or you can contact the IPC team on ext. 5900. We want to ensure that you are safe at all times.

PPE can be collected from D18 and Bryan Knight suite from 8am – 8pm and from the site teams overnight. You will only be given PPE consistent with our guidance.

If you are a line manager and many of your teams do not use email, please make sure this message is shown to them.

4. Hotel accommodation for colleagues

You may find you have to remove yourself from your normal home, either to protect your loved ones or ensure you are able to help the NHS by staying well. We have identified for April more than 70 hotel rooms which are available for use. If you need a room booking please contact the team on swbh.hotel-booking@nhs.net

This is a key part of our work to reduce absence and avoidable self-isolation during coming weeks. Please take up this offer, which is happening NHS-wide, but at pace and scale @SWBHnhs.

In addition, we have got on-site accommodation available for up to seven days aimed primarily at people working exhausting shift patterns or live far away. You can connect with that offer through our accommodation service via IVOR. We have paused refurbishment work on some rooms while we face the first phase of COVID.

5. COVID-19 – getting the advice you need

We have two channels by which to get approved guidance to you:

  • This e-bulletin which provides clarity on how we are implementing any recommendations or policies from outside the Trust.
  • A clinician-specific bulletin covering treatment and pathway queries as we begin to understand more about how to tackle COVID.

Linked to this second option is an email address specifically for clinical queries about particular patients or diagnoses. Please do not use this for other queries. But you can reach David Carruthers and our medical director’s team via swbh.covid-queries@nhs.net

Occupational health are currently, like infection control, immensely busy. Remember you do not need to ring OH to self-isolate. Your line manager is the person to talk with.

From today we also have a central HR/workforce queries line to make sure we are applying our policies and evolving advice fairly and consistently: The team is available 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday via 0121 507 3116.

If advice is needed outside of these times, we have a dedicated HR email address for Covid19 workforce related queries swbh.hr-advice-for-covid-19@nhs.net

Finally, please register for myConnect. The phone app will give you all our COVID information at your fingertips at work, at home or on the bus! To download the app, go to Google Play or the Apple App Store and search SWBH myConnect.