Following the updated national advice focusing of the ‘delay phase’ of Covid-19 management, we will now be moving into a stage of focusing our resources on maintaining patient care, while continuing to protect the health and safety of our staff by reducing risk wherever possible.
Each area of the organisation has been developing specific continuity plans and will be implementing these throughout the following days and weeks. Organisationally we would like to confirm the following:
- We will be following the national guidance in relation to self-isolation for those who live in households with possible Covid-19 infection i.e. if you live with others and you or one of them has a new continuous cough (however mild) or high temperature, all household members must stay home and not leave the house for 14 days from when the first person becomes ill. If after 7 days the first person to become ill feels better and no longer has a high temperature they can return to normal routine – please see https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-guidance-for-households-with-possible-covid-19-infection
Please ensure that you have informed your line manager that you will be self-isolating. If during this period you become unwell, please update your line manager. - In addition we support the need for those who are considered to be more high risk to ‘socially distance’ in line with the national guidance – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-guidance-on-social-distancing-and-for-vulnerable-people/guidance-on-social-distancing-for-everyone-in-the-uk-and-protecting-older-people-and-vulnerable-adults
Where staff work in patient facing roles and meet these criteria, we will undertake a risk assessment to mitigate risks as much as we possibly can. Please discuss this with your line manager. If the official national guidance changes for these individuals, to move from ‘social distance’ to ‘self isolate’, we will, of course, follow this guidance.
For those staff members who are not patient facing in their roles and are considered ‘more vulnerable’ (as per the above guidance) and are able to work remotely we would support this – please discuss this with your line manager.
We do need to retain our ability to 2keep the show on the road” and to provide patient care hence we would ask all staff to be flexible in the work that they are undertaking. If your current role is non-patient facing and you are not needing to self-isolate or are not at ‘higher risk’ following the national guidance we may well ask you to move into a patient facing role. For example, move from an administrative role into a receptionist role or from a telephone triage role into a face to face role, where you have the appropriate skill set / clinical knowledge.
Similarly, if you are in a patient facing role, but are now needing to self-isolate (but are well) or, you are considered in a higher risk group, we will ask you to undertake remote working wherever possible, for example administrative functions, remote call handling, remote triage etc. Please contact your line manager to discuss this.
In line with these national guidelines we will be stopping / amending the following activities:
- Meetings – we will only run ‘high priority’ meetings and, wherever possible, will run these via conference call / online meetings. If meetings are ‘high priority’ and face to face please follow social distancing guidelines wherever possible.
- The following corporate meetings have been cancelled until further notice
- SevernSide Performance and Management Board
- Severnside Service Delivery & Design Board
- Urgent Care Leadership and Operational Board
- Practice Services Leadership and Operational Board
- CareUK Sub Contract Management Board
- SIUC Quality Group
- Urgent Care Services and Quality Board
- Finance Governance Board
- Training – all face to face training has been cancelled until further notice. If you were due to undertake a level 3 safeguarding session, please update via the level 3 e-learning sessions available if you have capacity to do so. Online training will still be available and, where staff are self-isolating or working remotely, ensuring training is up to date may be a useful activity.
We are currently exploring whether there is any online training for Basic Life Support and will update staff with further information when we have it. - Induction – we will be cancelling all face to face corporate and clinical inductions from 18/03/2020 until further notice. However, we will action a remote / online version to ensure we are able to induct any new workforce during this period.
- Performance Development Reviews – please cancel these until further notice unless they are part of an induction programme. In this case please follow social distancing protocols or meet remotely if possible. If any staff member does wish to discuss any concerns with their line manager please do so as you normally would outside of the PDR process.
- The following corporate meetings have been cancelled until further notice
We recognise that in many areas, the care that we offer patients means that we must still see and physically interact with our patients and colleagues. We encourage warm, friendly and supportive interactions despite the constraints. Each area is looking at how they can best implement social distancing within this context, if you have any suggestions in this area please discuss with your line manager.