As I wrote in my email last week, I wanted to take this opportunity, on a weekly basis, to keep you up-to-date on the evolving situation as we deal with Covid-19, and how we are keeping our patients and staff safe.

Since my last update, I’m afraid we have had seven further deaths of patients who have tested positive for the virus. These have all been older patients who had significant other health conditions.

As expected, we are now seeing an increase in the number of seriously ill patients who have tested positive for Covid-19 in our hospitals. We know this is only going to increase in the days and weeks ahead.

That is why from today (Monday 23 March), we have taken significant further steps to keep our patients, and the staff caring for them, safe.

We are postponing all routine, planned surgery, including day cases and cancer operations. We are also stopping all outpatient appointments (face-to-face and telephone appointments), including endoscopy and chemotherapy.

This will allow us to be as prepared as possible to look after an increasing number of Covid-19 patients, by training additional clinical teams who are not specialists in respiratory illnesses, in how to care for them.

Please be reassured that any patients who urgently need to speak to a doctor, or require immediate treatment, will get the care they need. We are setting up ‘hot clinics’ specifically for these patients. We will also continue to carry out the most urgent operations.

Postponing chemotherapy will help to protect our cancer patients as these intense drugs affect their immune system, making them more susceptible to contracting Covid-19. We are reviewing these patients to ensure no harm will come to them by delaying their treatment.

While I understand these measures may cause concerns, we have carefully considered what steps we must take to keep our patients and staff safe, ensuring we can keep our essential services running.

While we will keep these changes under review, we expect they will remain in place for at least the next two weeks. Maternity appointments are currently continuing as scheduled.

We have also made some further changes to our temporary visitor policy. All patients are now only allowed one visitor. Patients who are still attending outpatient appointments can also only bring one person with them.

Other changes include:

• Blood tests at both our hospitals are now appointment only. More information, and the number to call to make an appointment, can be found on the webpage.
• Sexual health services are being provided at Outpatients East, Barking Community Hospital by appointment only, unless you are under 18, require HIV PEPSE, emergency contraception, or have been sexually assaulted. More information is on our website.

Please share key updates within your networks, and remind people who think they have symptoms to read the information on the NHS 111 website. 

Remember you can find the latest advice and guidance on the NHS and Public Health England websites.

Thank you for your continued support.

Tony Chambers
Interim Chief Executive

(Please note the information contained in this update was accurate at the time of publishing and is subject to change.)