Shropshire hospitals boss: 'We owe it to those who have lost their lives to play our part'
Read the latest column from Dr Arne Rose, the medical director at the Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust.
Last week I was asked to lend my name to a campaign launched by Shropshire Council, which asks residents to ‘step up’ and play their part in stopping the spread of coronavirus to keep themselves and others safe.
I was only too happy to add my voice to this campaign because, as I have said time and again, coronavirus has not gone away and, indeed, we are now seeing a rise in cases across our county and over the border into Wales.
Sadly, last week, a patient with coronavirus who was being treated at our hospitals died. This was the first Covid-related death in our hospitals since July and the 170th death since the start of the pandemic. But this individual is not a statistic.
This is somebody who will be deeply missed by their family and friends and whose death has left a hole in their lives.
We owe it to them and to everyone else who has lost their life to the virus to continue to play our part and follow the guidelines.
We can also play our part by getting the flu jab. Although this won’t protect you from coronavirus, flu on its own can be very serious and both together could cause even more serious problems.
Our trust flu campaign is well under way and already more than 800 staff have been vaccinated.
As we continue to plan for winter, work is under way on two projects which will help ease demand on our A&Es at both the Royal Shrewsbury and Princess Royal hospitals.
At RSH we are creating a Same Day Emergency Care centre and at PRH we are adding a Priorities Admissions Unit (PAU). Patients seen in the SDEC will be treated and sent home the same day, avoiding the need for a hospital admission. By creating a Priority Admissions Unit, we will be able to move patients into beds more quickly.
As well as impacting on our daily lives, coronavirus has had an impact on how we do business. Our Trust Board meetings are normally held in public, but since the start of the pandemic this has not been possible.
Crucial
However for our next meeting, which will take place tomorrow, people will be able to watch via a Microsoft Teams live event.
The details are on our website at www.sath.nhs.uk.
It is important to us that we are open and honest about the things we are doing, so we are really pleased to be able to make this happen.
It is also really important to us that our staff are able to have their say about how things are going.
Throughout October, we are marking Freedom to Speak Up month, which is designed to highlight the various ways colleagues can raise concerns.
This is particularly important to me and I am the Trust’s executive lead for Freedom to Speak Up.
Throughout the month we will be having information stalls at both hospitals and we are also relaunching our Freedom to Speak Up Advocate scheme.
Advocates work on a voluntary basis to provide information and guidance on how to raise concerns and are crucial to the success of this very important work.
