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Introduction Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust ran a payment scheme for patients and relatives for transporting patients to their dialysis sessions during the COVID-19 outbreak.  This was to support the local patient transport provider and enable them to manage during the COVID-19 outbreak while incentivising patients to make a potentially safer way into hospital than a multi pick up ambulance service.  The challenge We were forecasting potentially significant numbers of COVID-19 suspected and…

Tracey Murphy, Assistant Director of Nursing, Salford Royal Hospital. What we did Emma Montgomery, HD consultant specialist at Newcastle Hospital, had an idea for safe social distancing whilst people were receiving in centre haemodialysis during the COVID-19 pandemic.  The idea was to install Perspex screens between the dialysis stations to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection. This plan was shared with the North East and North West regional network. …

London renal centres have introduced a range of strategies to reduce transmission of Covid 19 and better manage individual patients with Covid 19 infection. Clinicians have written a collaborative document to describe through narrative their experiences and the changes instituted at haemodialysis centre and unit levels from the 7 London renal centres. The report collates learning and highlights common approaches and principals which the teams found effective and…

Picking up from where I left off last time, and almost a month has passed. COVID-19 has created a whole new layer of fear. The news is full of unlocking but as a ‘self-shielder’ all the guidance coming out, the new ‘Bubble Option’, shops opening, golf, Zoo’s – there is a caveat “none of this applies to the extremely vulnerable.” There was a concession that I…

The Primary function of the North West Response to Hospital Onset of COVID-19 infections (HOCI) is to have systems and processes in place to enable prompt recognition and response to any identified increasing incidents. The purpose of the document is to be supportive and to provide a clear process to aid the identification, management and reporting of HOCI cases, including those of health care workers, in…