by Andrea Lewis, Interim Chief Nurse at Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
The current pandemic has brought many changes to the way that we live and work, after the Government enforced severe restrictions in March 2020 to keep Covid-19 under control, which has significantly affected our hospitals.
Keeping in line with other hospitals up and down the country, we have had to implement several changes at Ashford and St. Peter’s Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust at the start of lockdown to help keep the public, members of staff safe and reduce the risk of transmission across all sites.
For patients and visitors, we have restricted inpatient visitors across most of our services to reduce the number of visitors on-site at any time and lower the risk of transmission.
The restrictions also meant that the majority of outpatient appointments were no longer able to take place face to face, and instead were conducted over the phone or by video call. This technology was not only used for consultations, our Neonatal Intensive Care (NICU) team saw the potential use for video messaging services and decided to use it as a way to send photo and video updates to the parents of premature and sick babies who were unable to be with their child.
Strict social distancing guidelines were put in place, which ensured that inpatients could be kept apart at the minimum safe distance required between hospital beds. To achieve this, we removed a small number of beds across our sites to reduce the risk of transmission amongst inpatients and keep them safe.
The guidelines also meant staff were having to work from home, where possible, to help further reduce the risk of transmission and footfall across our sites.
Many services were moved during the pandemic so that dedicated “Covid-safe” areas could be created for elective surgeries, and face to face outpatient services moved to the Ashford and Woking sites to allow St. Peter’s to focus on Covid, emergency and urgent care.
WHAT ARE WE DOING TO KEEP YOU SAFE?
We understand that it can be a worrying time and that many of you will have concerns around visiting our hospital sites. I want to take this opportunity to reassure you that infection control and prevention remains a priority and our sites continue to be thoroughly cleaned throughout the day. We are also carrying out additional intensive cleaning regularly to reduce the risk of transmission.
MOVING FORWARD
Throughout recent months, the Government has eased some of these initial measures to allow the nation to start getting back to ‘normal’. This was due to the public following the guidance, as well as the hard work of our staff who have adapted to new ways of working throughout this challenging time.
Following the peak of the Pandemic we began to restore services in a safe and socially distanced manner. Good infection prevention and control practices, and the safety of patients, visitors and staff remains our absolute priority.
Since the beginning of August, we have been able to restart the remainder of our outpatient services and at least half of them will now take place virtually. Patients will be able to have a telephone or video call appointment using the platform ‘Attend Anywhere’, which will make it easier for many of our patients to attend appointments and can also remove the stresses of travel and parking.
At Ashford and St Peter’s, we have made it a priority to work towards increasing activity levels across all of the services to what they were pre-Covid. Our staff also undergo the same checks when entering the hospital sites and follow the same guidance for face masks and will be wearing surgical face masks in non-clinical areas of the hospital and appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) in clinical areas.
VISITING OUR SITES
When you next visit our hospitals you will notice that we have introduced many changes to keep patients and staff safe and prevent the spread of the virus, as explained in a short animation we have created which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/EajPb7j4Mjo
At each entrance/exit point, we have set up checkpoints so that all patients and staff can have their temperature checked by a member of staff. At these points you will be asked to wear a surgical mask and use the hand sanitisers.
To ensure that we are following the guidance, all patients over the age of 11 years old must wear a surgical face mask that properly covers the mouth and nose in all areas of the hospital – unless you are exempt from wearing one or asked to remove it by a clinician.
You may also notice that we have reduced the number of entrance and exit points across our sites and introduced dedicated routes to help you get around easier. The routes are clearly signposted and floor markers are in use to help you get around our sites whilst keeping in line with the advice on social distancing.
If you have experienced any symptoms of Covid-19 within the last 14 days, please do not visit any of our hospital sites. This includes:
- A high temperature
- A new, continuous cough
- A loss or change to your sense of smell or taste
We ask that you also do not visit any of our sites if you or a member of your household has been isolating, or if you have been contacted by NHS Test and Trace after being in close contact with someone who has recently tested positive for Covid-19.
As you’re aware, the advice can drastically change from day to day, so I’d recommend that you please check our website for the current guidance before visiting us at http://www.ashfordstpeters.nhs.uk/