It’s nice to be back with you all, having taken a couple of weeks off to rest and recharge, something we’re encouraging all our staff to do. It’s especially important our teams look after their physical and mental wellbeing by taking a break, given many of them have worked through the peak of the pandemic and continue to work hard as we resume many services we had to pause.

Thanks to Kathryn for doing such a good job with this update while I was away.

Covid-19 patients, including Rohit’s emotional return home

I was pleased on my return to see, as it currently stands, we have had no deaths from Covid-19 for 22 days, and the number of patients being treated for Covid continues to fall, we currently have six confirmed patients who are being treated at Queen’s Hospital.

Over the last week, we’ve also been able to send home a further 70 patients with, or suspected to have had, Covid-19. This takes our total of recovered patients to 1,753. Among them is the wonderful story of grandfather-of-four Rohit Patel, who had an emotional return home to his family after three months being treated for Covid-19 at King George Hospital.

At one point his family were told to prepare for the worst. Rohit is so grateful to be back home with them that he said; ‘it’s like I’m now living my second life’.

Frailty Unit opens at King George Hospital

This week we’ve opened a frailty unit at King George Hospital which has been purposely designed to care for our frail and elderly patients, and aims to get them home on the same day.

We’ve brought together experts from across our clinical teams to provide rapid intervention from the point of arrival which will help us to care for our patients quicker, preventing them from having long waits in our Emergency Department.

The unit also has ambulatory assessment bays which allow patients to be assessed in special recliner chairs rather than beds where possible. This is much easier for frail patients, and also means they can stay in their own clothes which is more comfortable for them.

The team on the unit will also continue to develop links with our partners in the community, so we can ensure frail patients only stay in hospital when absolutely necessary, and can return home without delay when they’ve recovered.

Blood testing

Please be reminded that while we deal with the pandemic, we are currently only offering a limited blood testing service to our maternity and oncology patients. Our partners in the community are providing blood tests by appointment only. The latest information on where to get a blood test and how to book can be found on our website.

Insightful stories from our staff 

We’ve continued to share insightful stories from our staff of their experiences throughout the pandemic. This week we heard from Anushka Aubleelack, a clinical fellow in obstetric anaesthesia and intensive care medicine, who has been supporting our Intensive Care Unit as we’ve dealt with Covid-19.

She is passionate about advance life planning and good quality end of life care, something which became even more important during the pandemic. Read her experience of how it was the teamwork which prevented our frontline colleagues from becoming overwhelmed at the peak, and find out about her role as the clinical ambassador for the charity, Compassion in Dying.  It’s a really interesting read.

Kit Oriakhi, our Maternity Education Team Lead, also shared how rapidly the team’s role changed during the pandemic.

Her usual job of leading the team responsible for training and supporting our midwifery staff changed drastically and she found herself instead sharing information and training on Covid-19 and PPE.

It turned into a positive challenge for Kit, who it now back training second and third year student midwives.

The faces behind the masks

One thing our staff, and patients, have had to get used to during the pandemic has been PPE.  We understand it can be a little disconcerting for our patients when they come into hospital and our staff look different than they used to.

That’s why I’m really proud of what some of our colleagues have been doing to help normalise this, and remind everyone that there are real people behind the masks.

Marie Hillyard, one of our Emergency Department practice development nurses, has launched her own social media campaign on Twitter, #FaceBehindTheMask, to help people get to know members of our team better.

She started it as an opportunity to show what a great Emergency Department team we have, and it’s proved so popular, she’s now branching out to colleagues from other areas.

Marlo Tacanay, a senior staff nurse on our Intensive Care Unit, was also chosen to take part in a special collage of BAME nurses and midwives to celebrate the 72^nd birthday of the NHS earlier this month.

The photo-led ‘nurse behind the mask’ project as put together by the Florence Nightingale Foundation and featured those who had been working on the frontline during the pandemic.

Marlo, who joined our Trust in 2008 as a healthcare assistant and became a qualified nurse in 2014, reflected on the diversity in the NHS and said: “The NHS is multicultural and it’s important to appreciate everyone’s contribution. What binds us all together is that we all want to help and care for our patients.”

As ever, thank you for reading and I hope you have a good week and continue to stay well and keep safe.

Tony Chambers
Chief Executive