This is our once a day COVID-19 bulletin. This will take all national and professional guidance and information and tell you which changes we are implementing when and how. The plan to manage through April is our Operation Mary Seacole mobilisation. Remember KINDNESS is our watchword in implementing our plans.

If you have not heard of our Purple Wristbands policy, please take a look at yesterday’s Covid Bulletin. This is an important change to improve safety for patients during the Pandemic. We launch tomorrow and it is vital that ward based staff on all sites are aware of the implications and expectations.

1. Raise concerns and incidents so we can be safer during Covid-19

It is vital that during this period we continue to raise, investigate and act on IR1s.

There has been a drop in reporting in the last few weeks. There is no change to our policy, go onto Connect, click on corporate systems, and the third icon on the right says Incident Reporting. Let us know what you see and what is not working as we would all want.

Thank you to staff raising concerns direct with the Chief Executive, Medical Director and Chief Nurse, or locally. This is positive and helpful. It will make a difference.

2. Trust guidance on managing underlying health conditions – updated

As indicated in the WebEx briefings on Wednesday, the ongoing issue of national shielding letters is one of several factors which make assessment of individual employee risk an ongoing rather than a one off process. As we move through temporary redeployment and indeed volunteering into brigades it is important line managers, employees, and OH work together to find practical solutions.

The attached summary and annexes are not wholly new. However, they provide a simple recognition of workplace/employee risk and acknowledge new opportunities for high employees to work via technology and a commitment from the Trust to consider enhanced PPE for medium risk employees in higher risk workplace environments. These documents replace prior issue.

Summary of Trust Guidance on Underlying health Conditions

3. Brigades – next steps, act now please

During Good Friday we are writing back to everyone who volunteered to join a brigade last Friday. Thank you. Most of you volunteered for blue or red, some for yellow. We wanted to clarify that the Green Cleaning Brigade does not necessarily involve close work in patient facing areas. Anyway, if the colours of the Rainbow are confusing you – read our second piece of Brigade guidance!

Brigade Guidance Update 2

If you have not volunteered yet please do via [email protected]

Corporate departments are reviewing their staffing structures with the Chief Executive with a view to releasing significant numbers of back-bone workers into front-line temporary duties.

4. Who to contact if your swab test result has gone missing

Before March 25th, we tested a large number of staff, and a proportion could not get a result. Since then our testing has been through a series of suppliers, mainly via Boots, and increasingly with our own Black Country Pathology team. Some staff from those services have not had a result. Sometimes that is because the key details entered for the employee were inaccurate or incomplete. We have therefore now organised a central email address for all swab queries. Typically it will take 48 hours from a test to get a result. If you have already emailed either Mel Roberts or Toby Lewis for a result, those queries have been passed now to the central team.

Next week we expect to launch a Swab Service based at the Midland Metropolitan University Hospital. This will focus on workers who are not NHS employees and will in time target community hotspots too. This is a key part of the local Exit Strategy plan to move on from the coming Surge.

5. Pop up shop goes large

For the last few days we have run a Pop Up Shop at Sandwell for staff whose new work schedule makes i...