COVID-19 Bulletin: Wednesday 19 August

August 19, 2020

This is our weekly bulletin and will be issued every Wednesday. Please use this bulletin and cascade arrangements within care and corporate groups to guide your actions. 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.

Numbers not statistics: Today’s totals (last week’s data)

1. Ensuring a safe environment – we all play a part

As the threat of a second wave continues, it is vital that all colleagues adhere to the rules of wearing a face mask at all times whilst in clinical areas of our main hospital buildings.

Where social distancing is not possible then this remains important during handovers, breaks and with ward based teaching. Hand hygiene is equally important. The reason for this is clear, we need to remain vigilant against the transmission of COVID-19 and do everything we can to keep our patients and colleagues safe from infection. Complacency is our enemy, so we must all work together to continue to fight the spread.

See below for some important points to protect patients and colleagues:

Handwashing and gloves: 

• Regular and effective hand washing is the best way to reduce the spread of the virus
• Gloves are single use and should only be worn  when they are needed as part of PPE for a particular procedure or task and should immediately be disposed of following this and hand hygiene performed.
• Gloves are not required for procedures where there is a minimal risk of cross infection between patients and staff.

Manage the risk around you, if you feel that the behaviours of those around you are putting you at risk, speak up and notify your manager.

Social distancing:

To stop the spread of COVID-19 you should be taking steps to practice social distancing by leaving 2 metres (6ft) between you and those around you.

Whether you work in an office or clinical area, or someone’s home, you should be taking steps to limit close contact with colleagues.

• In communal areas such as coffee shops and restaurants you will see markings on the floor showing the ideal spacing between people.
• Observe the space around you and be mindful of not stepping in to the personal space of others.
• Make good use of the technologies we now have available such as WebEx Teams and Meetings to limit your face to face contact.
• If someone is too close, it’s ok to ask them to give you some space.

Manage the risk around you, if you feel that the behaviours of those around you are putting you at risk, speak up and notify your manager.

2. Working From Home arrangements extended

Our Working From Home policy will remain in place until 15 January 2021, as we continue to evaluate what is best for colleagues and the services we provide.

This includes a safe office space review, which is now close to conclusion. As a result the Health and Safety team has written to managers in areas where this has been completed. If you have not yet responded please ensure you do.

There will also be engagement over long-term working from home arrangements over the coming months. This strategy will reflect learnings from over the last five months and look to put arrangements on a firmer and more contractual footing that will carry the Trust through to 2023.

This ensures fairness for existing and new employees and clarity about eligibility and decision making.

A further survey of working from home arrangements will be undertaken in September to help to inform our decision making.

If you do not have the correct IT or other equipment for working from home you should raise this with your line manager in the first instance.

If you require any information on the safe office space review then please contact Jacque Calloway on ext 4118 or Allison Binns on ext 4121.

You are able to read the working from home policy in full by clicking here.

3. Returning from abroad

The COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly developing situation and we recognise that ongoing Government announcements regarding a change in policy for those returning from some countries will impact on some colleagues.

In responding to the situation and to provide support we have taken the decision that all colleagues’ circumstances must be treated individually to ensure that we offer every opportunity to help. We have received confirmation from Public Health England that all NHS staff/GPs, will be required to self-isolate for 14-days on return from countries not on the Government exemption list. To see the full list go to coronavirus travel guidance website.

Colleagues cannot book a test to get them back to work earlier, all those returning must self-isolate for the full 14 days. Any colleague who is symptomatic on return should book a test through our normal procedure; if the test is negative you must still complete the 14-days self-isolation.

Those staff affected will be offered a variety of options which should, where possible, be agreed with your line manager, and recorded, prior to any trip abroad as we recognise this continues to be an ever changing situation.

All colleagues should discuss their plans in detail, with their line manager before travelling to any of the countries listed, and consider whether they will be insured for their trip and any implications for the individual if something happens and you are not insured or may be unable to travel home. The line manager should make a record of the discussion and what was agreed.

Options available for quarantine period (not an exhaustive list)

• Working from home – temporarily for those who ordinarily work within a clinical environment where possible. Consideration must be given by the line manager to the fairness of the application of home working.
• Line managers may consider that some time is appropriate to work from home undertaking non patient facing duties, and the rest of the time as annual leave / unpaid leave / time owing.
• Utilise additional annual leave compensated by a period of unpaid leave
• Take unpaid leave
• Work additional hours over an agreed period to make up the time
• Consideration may be given for post travel quarantine payments in extenuating circumstances (e.g. attendance at a family funeral in a non-exempt country).

We have produced a flow chart regarding the process to follow.

4. Updated guidance on the usage of fans

In view of the extremely warm weather, we have some updated guidance on the usage of fans in non-clinical and clinical areas. Conventional, bladed fans can be used and may be beneficial where there is poor air circulation, moving air towards windows.

Fans should not be directed towards doors, driving air into other rooms, or from sources of aerosol generation, directly towards other patients in a COVID-19 environment.

Please note that fans will not cool staff wearing water repellent PPE, so they will be of limited practical value in ITU settings and are therefore not advised.

Colleagues should ensure maintenance and cleaning of fans and their blades should continue as all fans need to be clean and free from dust.

Dyson fans must not be used.

5. Visiting inpatients – current restrictions remain

We are taking a cautionary approach to ensure that we can continue to minimise the risk of transmission of COVID-19 so our current visiting restrictions remain in place.

As a reminder, visiting inpatients is only permitted for one person at a time for patients who are at end of life and those with limited mental capacity, one parent/guardian of a child and birthing partners in maternity, as well as other exceptional circumstances. Please make a reasonable local judgement regarding the time you allow for each visit.

Please continue to encourage the use of mobile devices/tablets for families to keep in touch with their loved ones.

We recognise the challenges that are faced by colleagues whilst implementing these restrictions and we want to thank everyone for their support in enforcing the current visiting arrangements. Over the next few weeks we will begin the process of looking at how we can safely ease visiting restrictions.

6. New assessment to help reduce the impact of stress

We have launched a new way of completing stress risk assessments in addition to the retrospective assessments that happen when colleagues are feeling stressed and or have been off work with stress. This new assessment is able to be taken proactively at the same time of year, each year to check the stress levels in departments and to drive interventions to reduce stress.

The new assessment tool is available as an e-form that can be found by looking for the green button on the right hand side on the Connect homepage. The form takes a few minutes to complete and is sent confidentially to the wellbeing hub. The wellbeing hub will not forward information to your manager without your consent.

The stress risk assessment is designed to identify employees who require additional support and to have supportive conversations through the wellbeing hub to decrease the impact of stress in those high risk areas.

7. Have you or any staff recovered from COVID-19

Colleagues who have recovered from COVID-19 are being prioritised for a collection programme for Convalescent Plasma, which is part of a large clinical trial looking at treatments for the virus.

So far, NHSBT has collected more than 13,000 units of plasma from people who have recovered from the disea

se, and these have started to be transfused into patients in hospital who are seriously ill.

Dr Zahid Sarfaz (pictured) one of our A&E doctors based at Sandwell Hospital became one of the first to donate his plasma to NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) after he had recovered from COVID-19.

If you, or someone you know has had a positive test, or symptoms of coronavirus, you can get in touch and book an appointment to donate on 0300 123 23 23 or https://www.nhsbt.nhs.uk/how-you-can-help/convalescent-plasma-clinical-trial/.

Do you want to help with developing a COVID-19 vaccine?

Over 100,000 people have volunteered to take part in COVID-19 vaccine trials, helping to speed up efforts to discover a safe and effective vaccine. The government is encouraging more people to sign up to the NHS Covid-19 Vaccine Research Registry to help the NHS in the fight against coronavirus. To enable large-scale vaccine studies to take place across the UK, the aim is to get as many people as possible signed up by October. Read more.

If you would like to sign-up to take part in the trials please click here.