Although it doesn’t quite feel like spring is in the air, we have every reason to feel positive! The days are getting lighter, restrictions are easing and COVID-19 cases, both in our hospitals and the community, continue to fall.
Positivity provides a moment to focus our minds on two things really: continuing to keep virus transmission as low as possible and continuing the work to retuning our services to as close to normal as possible for our patients. The guidance of Hands, Face and (outdoor) Space is the corner stone to infection prevention and control. This continues to be a super-hot topic and remains a vital tool in reducing the spread of the virus, keeping the infection rates down and sticking to the Government’s road map.
One area the Trust’s Infection Prevention and Control Team are to be highly commended for is their work in monitoring the COVID-19 infections acquired in the hospital, which we have unfortunately experienced. Being able to quickly identify infections and act in a timely manner has tightly controlled outbreaks, preventing further spread.
Tackling the spread of infections is not just one team’s job, everyone in the Trust has a part to play. And it is extremely comforting to know that our staff are doing a great job, because as I write we are recording ZERO nosocomial outbreaks. This is a massive achievement as, during the hight of the waves, we had the highest number of infected inpatients in the North West and recorded the lowest nosocomial figures across the region.
It just so happened this week that I was passed a blog, penned by a junior doctor, in which he shares his insight of nosocomial outbreaks (infections acquired in the hospital) at the Trust. I have his consent to share it with you and I hope you find it as interesting a read as I did.
Kevin
Guest Blog: Junior Doctor
"Many of us have now twice experienced the horrible sinking feeling of watching the COVID-19 numbers in our hospitals start to rise and then seemingly explode. It’s a nervous and panicked time for all, but within these numbers there can lay an even more harrowing statistic: nosocomial numbers - the number of patients who contracted COVID-19 in hospital.
Having recently moved to ELHT from another Trust, I have been impressed by the sheer number of COVID-19 patients you have had to deal with, and how comparatively low the nosocomial numbers have been. My previous Trust had recorded one of the highest nosocomial rates in the country and that was devastating for patients and their families who have put trust in us as healthcare professionals to provide safe care for themselves and their loved ones, especially at a time when visiting is suspended.
Perhaps for us too, the nosocomial rates can become a weight on our own conscious; a moral injury. Certainly that is what I found difficult to deal with as patients succumbed on elective "super-green" wards, a set up designed to provide patients with the maximum protection against contracting the virus in hospital, or watching some long-term patients who had made such excellent progress and recovery be felled by our inability to adequately stop them being exposed to COVID-19. It’s all tinged with a sense of collective responsibility that despite difficult circumstances we had let our patients down.
The answer to combatting this is and always has been simple: hand washing and effective PPE.
It is refreshing therefore to see things slightly more positively here at ELHT. A lot of the simple things we do in terms of hand hygiene and PPE make a huge difference to our patients, their families, and ourselves. I may not have been here all that long, but it is obvious that it is these factors that have made the difference and I, as a doctor, feel ELHT is a happier and safer place to work for it."