Following the last bulletin regarding Christmas parties, unfortunately there has been a continued rise in staff sickness due to COVID and other infection related illnesses. Active COVID cases alone have more than doubled over the last 2 weeks and several new outbreaks have been recorded and being managed by the COVID Leads. This has not only had an impact on individuals but also on Trust functions in some of our teams.
This time of year invites us to be more social, such as gatherings and food sharing, which have the ability to increase the spread of infections more easily amongst our teams and families. Furthermore, there is a regional expectation that COVID cases will rise through the coming weeks into January. With this intelligence and the impact we have already seen, due to the rise in cases, a decision has been made to temporarily tighten precautions to protect ourselves. This is a decision not taken lightly and will be reviewed again in 4 weeks, by which time cases hopefully take a downward trend and the precautions will be reassessed and adjusted accordingly, as they have before.
With immediate effect the following will be required to be implemented on all Trust sites
All of the standard business as usual factors remain in place including good ventilation, hand hygiene, temperature checking and wiping down workstations.
Symptomatic staff must continue to test and be referred to the COVID team.
Hopefully the above can be reviewed soon and this will help towards limiting transmission, whilst still allowing some normal activity. Our previous approach has helped us manage the spread of infection beforehand and we are confident the professional response by you will help manage further spreading of infection during this short time. We continue to learn to live with COVID and we accept that COVID, as well as other infections, will rise and fall. Taking this action now will help protect ourselves and our patients.
Both I and the Trust senior leaders thank you for your continued support around managing infection.
- Shaun Watkins (Head of Infection Prevention and Control)
Published 21st December 2022