Heartbeat: Critical care take research to heart

September 9, 2020

At the height of the pandemic, many colleagues were redeployed to areas where they were needed the most to help fight COVID-19.

One such area was critical care where colleagues were treating our sickest patients. Over 300 colleagues were redeployed to critical care coming from areas including theatres, outpatients and research and development.

Heartbeat caught up with Dean Farrington, one of the ward managers in critical care, who told us more. He said: “Dealing with the pandemic was quite unprecedented for us all. We knew we needed to plan quickly to ensure we had the right amount of staff in the department to cover the shifts and enable colleagues to have deserved breaks. We were pleased with the colleagues who joined us – they were so willing to learn and support our work.”

Sharon Clarke and Shakila Rasool, Practice Development Sisters in critical care were instrumental in ensuring the redeployed teams received the training they required. Sharon explained: “We put on a two-day programme to enable colleagues to work within critical care. We also felt it was really important for everyone to have a thorough induction to the team and to make them feel part of the team.

“Initially, we had 300 colleagues join us and as the pandemic eased this was scaled down to 17. We have been able to provide these colleagues with an extended training programme to enhance their knowledge and skills further.

“Overall, the redeployment into critical care was successful. The redeployed teams were fantastic, always willing to learn and had a smile even during the most difficult times. It must have been very challenging for them to join a completely new team, and they handled it exceptionally.”

One of the colleagues who joined the critical care team is Research Nurse, Brian Gammon who had last worked in critical care over 20 years ago. He recalled: “It was extremely exciting and nerve-wracking to be called back. Credit due to Dean and the team who made us all feel welcome by helping us settle in and provide us with a list of agreed competencies.

“Research has played a huge part in the fight against COVID-19, and it is pleasing to see the organisation playing a role in the national trials. As a research nurse, I was struck by how my colleagues in critical care were so willing to accommodate trial related work. Everyone took on the role of recruitment to study trials very readily as part of their role, seeing it as being a part of everyday clinical practice. This approach to recruitment of patients is having a huge impact on patient outcomes.

“As a research team, we plan to continue to work closely with critical care as well as other teams across the Trust to enable us to keep up the momentum of having research at the heart of what we do.”