Updates
Update, 19 November
Published: 19 November 2020
New COVID-19 infection prevention and control resources available
All staff can now access a webinar recorded last week designed to maximise their confidence in using PPE correctly and help control the spread of coronavirus within our hospitals.
The webinar covers a new approach, incorporating the national Hands, Face, Space campaign to offer practical advice to support patient-facing colleagues.
An updated visual guide to the correct PPE use is now available online. This will also be delivered to each in-patient setting in full A2-sized format and placed in a prominent location to help staff get it right when they need to most.
Presentations and printable Hands, Face, Space guides are available for managers to support their staff locally, in addition to a patient mask-wearing escalation flow chart already distributed to ward managers, now located under ‘patient handling’ at the link below.
In the coming days, leaflets will also start to be delivered to all patients to encourage the use of Clinell hand wipes at meal times – and mask wearing at all other times. This leaflet is printed in English and contains Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, and Polish translations – Birmingham’s other most used languages.
Further printed resources are also available such as a guide to PPE leaflet that is available from the Print Room. Other printed resources such as updated waiting-room posters are being distributed to areas directly.
You can find these resources under IPC on the coronavirus staff website:
View the webinar below:
Patient safety notice
Five clusters, comprising 214 people, of different mink-variant SARS-CoV-2 viruses have been identified in Denmark, primarily in the North Jutland region. All cases to date were reported in August and September in individuals from North Jutland.
Based on initial investigations, virus from this cluster demonstrated less sensitivity for neutralising antibodies when tested against antibodies from people with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Please read the full patient safety notice:
For further advice or information please refer to or contact the Infection control and prevention intranet pages and contacts or the Site and Divisional Management Teams.
Visiting guidelines reminder
Visiting restrictions remain in place for inpatients and outpatients due to COVID-19.
The visiting guidelines for staff, including the exceptional circumstances for visiting criteria, can be found here:
Please also remember to advise inpatients’ friends and relatives about the alternative ways of keeping in touch during this challenging time. These include phone and video calls (mobile phones and tablets are available on all wards on request) and the parcels for patients and letters for loved ones initiatives:
Re-capping of medical air outlets that are no longer required
During the pandemic, there has been a requirement in certain areas to uncap medical air outlets to enable provision of life saving treatment and care for patients admitted with COVID-19.
Where a medical air outlet is no longer required please contact the Estates Department to have the medical air source recapped due to the severe risk of harm or death can occur if medical air is accidentally administered to patients instead of oxygen. This is classed as a Never Event.
Medical Air Wall Terminal Outlets should only remain uncapped in clinical areas that regularly require air for equipment, for example, ventilators, CPAP.
If Medical Air is required to nebulise a patient then a power driven nebuliser should be used.