The Anaesthesia Blog. The UK COVID-19 epidemic: time to plan and time to act

Summary

Professor Tim Cook and Dr Kariem El-Boghdadly discuss in this blog the challenges the coronavirus presents to healthcare services.

Central to the care of patients with coronavirus is staff safety. In the early stages, patients will need to be isolated from other patients and, as the epidemic progresses, they will need to be cohorted away from non-infected patients. Staff protection will require a system that includes, but is not restricted to, strict use of personal protective equipment (PPE). Use of PPE, using a buddy system to ensure this is optimised and engaging in low patient contact methods will need to become second nature for all healthcare workers.

Anaesthetists and intensivists are highly invested in this topic because airway management, including tracheal intubation, is associated with some of the highest risks of transmission of infection. PPE is likely to be effective, so too are simple methods of decontamination of surfaces, equipment and ourselves with soap and alcohol-based cleaning processes.