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Showing results for tags 'Pandemic'.
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Content Article
Professional boundaries are hampering the care of covid patients
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Blogs
Can we now create a space for interprofessional learning, where trust and respect are born and where clinical skills and clinical reasoning is shared between our professional tribes, asks Lucy Brock in this HSJ article. Lucy works at UCLPartners as the lead for education and simulation. She is also a respiratory physiotherapist and returned to clinical practice to support colleagues on intensive care in March 2020. Regulatory bodies and education systems exist to ensure that patients are surrounded by competent professionals, but the potential of our workforce is unduly limited by their territorial nature and siloed funding. The urgency of a pandemic offered almost no time for creative thinking but we now have a relative reprieve and so a chance to reconsider the limits of professional scope. Can we now create a space for interprofessional learning, where trust and respect are born and where clinical skills and clinical reasoning is shared between our brilliant professional tribes? Might this be key in mobilising a more efficient and agile workforce, better prepared for the next wave? -
Content ArticleMotivated by the COVID-19 pandemic, Perla et al. developed a novel Shewhart chart to visualise and learn from variation in reported deaths in an epidemic.
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Content ArticleHealthcare staff have had to adapt their way of working as a result of the pandemic, which has made pre-COVID guidance obsolete. Different Trusts are doing different things. Associate Director of Patient Safety Learning and Critical Care Outreach Nurse, Claire Cox, outlines the challenges and asks, what is the solution?
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Content ArticleCOVID-19 has created unprecedented pressures for the NHS as a whole including maternity services. How can maternity leaders run a safe and rights respecting maternity service during a pandemic? This guide, produced by Brithrights, sets out a process to support maternity service leaders to reach decisions that help them to achieve this. All those affected by decisions need to be involved in making them. NHS England guidance states that Maternity Voices Partnership Chairs should be involved in decisions about temporary changes to maternity services, in addition to staff and partner organisations.
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Content ArticleA group of doctors who have chronic COVID-19 symptoms have been digesting information on social media platforms from thousands of individuals in the UK and worldwide affected by covid symptoms for 16 weeks or more. Some of these symptoms and patients’ experiences have been summarised in a video “Message in a bottle—long covid SOS.” The announcement of an NHS portal for patients who have been admitted to hospital or dealt with the illness at home is a welcome signal that the problems of long standing covid symptoms are starting to be recognised. In this BMJ article, the authors explore these patients' experiences and urge that the new NHS portal should be co-created with by patients with COVID-19 and carers. There needs to be some bidirectionality in the creation of this service and subsequent research to avoid institutional “top down” blind spots about the condition.
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Content ArticleEarly clinical experiences have demonstrated the wide spectrum of COVID-19 presentations, including various reports of atypical presentations of COVID-19 and possible mimic conditions. This article, published in the BMJ, summarises the current evidence surrounding atypical presentations of COVID-19 including neurological, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, otorhinolaryngology and geriatric features.
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Content ArticleThis table was included in the report Patient Safety Concerns in COVID-19 related events: a study of 343 event reports from 71 Hospitals in Pennsylvania, published by the Patient Safety Authority. It outlines 13 factors associated with patient safety concerns within COVID-19 related events. These include admssion screening, communication, knowledge deficit and medication. The full list with more detailed explanations of each can be downloaded via the attachment.
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Content ArticleOver 300 health and social care staff died in the UK during the first COVID‐19 wave. There are concerns regarding infection risks but there has been very little discussion or research on personal protective equipment (PPE) design. To understand how PPE changes clinical tasks, Hignett et al. conducted an online survey between (via Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) 4 April and 8 May 2020, when there was a peak of 33,173 deaths. They focused on human factor/ergonomic issues to avoid preconception bias about availability to ask with regard to fit and comfort, reading and operating equipment, hearing and communicating, reaching and moving, and dexterity to use touch screens, press buttons, open vials/taps and use syringes.
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Content ArticleHospitals are currently planning to resume or expand surgical services that were cancelled during the recent COVID-19 crisis. While emergency surgery will need to continue to be performed within current restrictions, other operations might now be feasible as resources become available. The following checklist from the Royal College of Surgeons of England introduces some of the main criteria that should be taken into account in the initial stages of resuming planned surgery.
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Content ArticleThe COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly challenged many healthcare systems. To respond to the crisis, these systems have had to reorganise instantly, with little time to reflect on the roles to assign to their patient safety (PS) and quality improvement (QI) experts. In many cases, staff who had a background in clinical care was called to support wards and critical care. Others were deemed “non-essential” and sent back to work from home, while their programmes were placed in hibernation mode. This has meant that many QI and PS experts with skills to offer in their field have ended up carrying out tasks unrelated to the current crisis.
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Content Article
GOV.UK: Coronavirus testing dashboard
Patient Safety Learning posted an article in Data, research and statistics
Regularly updated data from GOV.UK on tests processed and testing capacity in the UK. -
Content Article
Everything keeps changing while the patients stay the same
Claire Cox posted an article in Blogs
Patients remain the same, but the way that care is organised and delivered around us is changing. We are currently working in a state of flux. In her latest blog, Claire expresses concern around the lack of clarity and standardised updated guidance available for staff, which is leading to different interpretations of the rules and a lack of trust in our leaders, and highlights the impact this is having on staff and patient safety. She is calling for evidenced-based guidance, clarity, better communication and strong leadership to instill trust and the assurance that patient and staff safety is a core priority.- Posted
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Content ArticleThe coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic will leave a deep and lasting scar on the mental health of millions in this country. The devastating loss of life, the impact of lockdown and loneliness, and the inevitable recession that lies ahead will affect all of us. Prioritising mental health has never been more critical than it is now. New mental health problems have developed as a result of the pandemic, and existing mental health problems have gotten worse. To understand how we can best support people during this uncertain time, Mind carried out research to understand the experiences of people with pre-existing mental health problems, the challenges that they are facing, the coping strategies that they are using, and the support they would like to receive.
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Content ArticleLesley Flatley, reflects on some of the challenges and key learnings from leading in isolation, as a manager in an independent care home, during the pandemic. "Our experiences of the pandemic so far have been extremely challenging, but we must continue to improve and build on new ways of working to ensure that staff and residents are supported."
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Content ArticleIn this interview, Dr Jake Suett talks about his experience of persisting and debilitating symptoms after he was suspected to have contracted COVID-19. Additional reading: Patient safety concerns for Long COVID patients (6 July 2020) Press release: Patient Safety Learning calls for urgent action to ensure Long COVID patients are heard and supported (6 July 2020) My experience of suspected 'Long COVID' (6 July 2020) Dismissed, unsupported and misdiagnosed: Interview with a COVID-19 ‘long-hauler’
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Content ArticleThe scale of the challenge facing the NHS after the first wave of COVID-19 in England is only just coming to light. The NHS adapted at speed to redeploy staff, change estate configurations, reduce non-COVID-19 face-to-face appointments and redesign patient pathways. The deployment of the NHS physician workforce provides an insight into the NHS response. In the middle of May, 32% of Royal College of Physicians (RCP) members reported working in a clinical area that was different from their normal practice.By the start of June this had reduced by 10% to 22%, but that still means one-fifth of the workforce were working outside their usual area. This has knock-on effects for patients and the resumption of services. The RCP, in partnership with our specialist societies, has been working with NHS England to plan specialty-specific restart activity. This is based on different scenarios regarding specialty capacity across the country, and the impact of COVID-19 is being felt unevenly. Consultants in respiratory medicine and gastroenterology expect it to take 2 years to recover from the backlog created by COVID-19, while those in cardiology are expecting it to take 18–21 months. Providing accurate estimates and projections about what the next 12 months hold for the NHS is difficult, as we can’t be certain about whether there will be future outbreaks and waves of COVID-19. This report highlights just why it is so important that the government, the NHS and politicians openly discuss the significant unmet need in the patient population.
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Content ArticleWeeks and months after having a confirmed or suspected Covid-19 infection, many people are finding they still haven’t fully recovered. Emerging reports describe lingering symptoms ranging from fatigue and brain-fog to breathlessness and tingling toes. So why does Covid-19 cause lasting health problems? In this podcast, Ian Sample discusses some of the possible explanations with Prof Danny Altmann, and finds out how patients might be helped in the future.
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Content ArticleThe purpose of this guide from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors (CIEHF) is to help people working in the health and social care ecosystem capture valuable practice and improvements made during their response to COVID-19. The aim is to contribute to organisational change at a policy, strategic and operational level. If left too late, there is a real danger that positive change is not documented and will be lost as the health system emerges from the pandemic.
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Content Article
Patient safety concerns for Long COVID patients (6 July 2020)
PatientSafetyLearning Team posted an article in Blogs
An increasing number of people with confirmed or suspected COVID-19 are continuing to struggle with prolonged, debilitating and sometimes severe symptoms months later.[1] Many were never admitted to hospital and have instead been trying to manage their symptoms and recovery at home. These patients are sometimes referred to as the ‘long-haulers’ or described as having ‘post-acute’, ‘chronic’ or ‘long-term’ COVID-19. Here, we will use the term ‘Long COVID’. With social distancing restrictions still in place, patients in the UK and across the world have been turning to social media support networks[2] to connect with others who are experiencing similar challenges. These patients have raised very credible concerns about the care they are receiving[3] and the uncertainties they face. Their concerns are revealing many implications for patient safety. We have recently shared on the hub the story of Dr Jake Suett[4], one of the many people experiencing symptoms of Long COVID. When we conclude this article, we will return to his story and highlight the changes that he is calling for. However, first, we will focus on the patient safety aspects of Long COVID, highlighting key areas of concern and action needed (a full list of actions can be found summarised here). -
Content Article
Effective team-working during the COVID-19 crisis
Claire Cox posted an article in Workforce and resources
Working with Professor Michael West, Affina OD are sharing key principles to support emerging teams and effective team working during this time of uncertainty and ambiguity. Here, he discusses 8 key principles to aid effective team working during the pandemic. -
Content ArticleLeadership must nurture a robust safety culture to manage crisis. This article from Foy and Mallory highlights the importance of formal and informal communication mechanisms, management empowerment and responsibility, and dialogue across silos to enhance the safety of teams and patients.
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Content ArticleChallenges to the status quo present leaders with the opportunity and responsibility to not only respond but to learn and transform the system. This article from Slotkin et al. shares the experience of leaders at a large health system to design an emerging COVID response to effectively innovate to sustain improvement.
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Content ArticleThis commentary from Michael Fraser shares recommendations for leaders to meet COVID-19 stressors successfully. The article suggests leaders communicate well, be decisive, lead without hierarchy, remain proactive and take care of themselves to protect others.
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Content ArticleAccess to wide range of perspectives can bring creativity to solutions and the actions that implement them. This website presents materials that cover topics such as leading in critical times, building and supporting resilience, Leading to Innovate, change and adapt, teaming and working remotely, coaching peers and developing as a leader.
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Content ArticleThis regularly updated resource collection links to webinars, articles, and conversations that explore the role of leadership in crisis response. Topics covered include workforce, telehealth, operations and safety.
