Analysis
Emergency nurses test NHS response to Ebola outbreak
URGENT CARE staff should be aware that Ebola must be ruled out in all patients at their first point of contact in emergency departments (EDs), new guidance warns. Published last month by the College of Emergency Medicine and Public Health England, the Ebola guidance for EDs stresses that emergency care clinicians are unlikely to come across patients with the virus but that all EDs should have plans in place for dealing with them. According to the guidance, if someone who has had a temperature of more than 38°C in the past 24 hours and who has been to one of the affected west African countries in the past 21 days attends an ED, he or she should be isolated in a single room with hand-washing facilities, a telephone and, if possible, a private bathroom. A clinician trained in the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) should then take a full history of the patient including recent travel details. If this process fails, patients left in public waiting areas should be isolated. The names of all members of staff and the public who may have come into contact with the patients or their bodily fluids must be recorded. The guidance states that there should be regular hospital drills for staff to practise receiving patients at high risk, putting on and removing PPE safely, and assessing high risk patients. Staff should also know what to do if the process fails. Chief medical officer for England Dame Sally Davies told the Commons health committee that all emergency care staff should know how to put on and remove PPE safely. Staff should also ‘agree who would be the first to put it on’, she told MPs last month. EMERGENCY NURSE
Meanwhile, NHS England has distributed posters about Ebola to all EDs to raise awareness of the virus among the public. The posters urge patients who have visited an affected country in the past 21 days, or who have been in contact with someone who has had the virus, and who feels unwell or has a fever, to tell a member of staff without touching them, or to call 111. Testing response Emergency nurses have also been involved in testing the NHS response to an Ebola outbreak, with an eight-hour exercise involving emergency services, hospitals and GP surgeries taking place around the UK last month. This involved transferring two actors playing patients: one from the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, to the specialist infectious diseases unit at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and the other from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust ED to its specialist tropical diseases and infectious diseases unit. The exercise was held as the government stepped up its response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa. More than 4,500 people, including more than 230 healthcare workers, have died worldwide, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Erin Dean is a freelance journalist Getty Images
Advice on containing the virus has been issued and staff are taking part in national drills across the UK, reports Erin Dean
Nurses in Spain and the US have been diagnosed with the virus after caring for patients who had been infected in Africa. In the US, meanwhile, stricter staff guidelines on caring for people with Ebola call for full-body suits and rigorous rules for their removal. As Emergency Nurse went to press, nurses in the UK were helping to screen people arriving from affected countries at Birmingham, London and Manchester airports, and those arriving on Eurostar. Travellers were having their temperature taken, and were being asked questions to assess risk and given advice on who to call and what to do if they become unwell. Military nursing staff have been sent to Sierra Leone to treat local healthcare workers who have been infected, and the UK has committed to building at least five Ebola treatment facilities and providing 700 beds to help almost 9,000 patients over the next six months. More than 90 nurses, doctors and infectious disease consultants from 22 Field Hospital, in Aldershot, Hampshire, have joined 40 soldiers already in the west African country. Meanwhile, a military ship, RFA Argus, which has a fully equipped hospital on board, was due to arrive at Sierra Leone by the end of the month. ■ Copies of the College of Emergency Medicine guidance are available at tinyurl.com/oqcwcjt See also opinion, page 15
Royal Free Hospital senior matron Breda Athan demonstrates the use of equipment to protect staff from Ebola
November 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 7 11
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Emergency nurses test NHS response to Ebola outbreak
URGENT CARE staff should be aware that Ebola must be ruled out in all patients at their first point of contact in emergency departments (EDs), new guidance warns. Published last month by the College of Emergency Medicine and Public Health England, the Ebola guidance for EDs stresses that emergency care clinicians are unlikely to come across patients with the virus but that all EDs should have plans in place for dealing with them. According to the guidance, if someone who has had a temperature of more than 38°C in the past 24 hours and who has been to one of the affected west African countries in the past 21 days attends an ED, he or she should be isolated in a single room with hand-washing facilities, a telephone and, if possible, a private bathroom. A clinician trained in the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) should then take a full history of the patient including recent travel details. If this process fails, patients left in public waiting areas should be isolated. The names of all members of staff and the public who may have come into contact with the patients or their bodily fluids must be recorded. The guidance states that there should be regular hospital drills for staff to practise receiving patients at high risk, putting on and removing PPE safely, and assessing high risk patients. Staff should also know what to do if the process fails. Chief medical officer for England Dame Sally Davies told the Commons health committee that all emergency care staff should know how to put on and remove PPE safely. Staff should also ‘agree who would be the first to put it on’, she told MPs last month. EMERGENCY NURSE
Meanwhile, NHS England has distributed posters about Ebola to all EDs to raise awareness of the virus among the public. The posters urge patients who have visited an affected country in the past 21 days, or who have been in contact with someone who has had the virus, and who feels unwell or has a fever, to tell a member of staff without touching them, or to call 111. Testing response Emergency nurses have also been involved in testing the NHS response to an Ebola outbreak, with an eight-hour exercise involving emergency services, hospitals and GP surgeries taking place around the UK last month. This involved transferring two actors playing patients: one from the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, to the specialist infectious diseases unit at the Royal Free Hospital, London, and the other from the Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust ED to its specialist tropical diseases and infectious diseases unit. The exercise was held as the government stepped up its response to the Ebola outbreak in Africa. More than 4,500 people, including more than 230 healthcare workers, have died worldwide, mainly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Erin Dean is a freelance journalist Getty Images
Advice on containing the virus has been issued and staff are taking part in national drills across the UK, reports Erin Dean
Nurses in Spain and the US have been diagnosed with the virus after caring for patients who had been infected in Africa. In the US, meanwhile, stricter staff guidelines on caring for people with Ebola call for full-body suits and rigorous rules for their removal. As Emergency Nurse went to press, nurses in the UK were helping to screen people arriving from affected countries at Birmingham, London and Manchester airports, and those arriving on Eurostar. Travellers were having their temperature taken, and were being asked questions to assess risk and given advice on who to call and what to do if they become unwell. Military nursing staff have been sent to Sierra Leone to treat local healthcare workers who have been infected, and the UK has committed to building at least five Ebola treatment facilities and providing 700 beds to help almost 9,000 patients over the next six months. More than 90 nurses, doctors and infectious disease consultants from 22 Field Hospital, in Aldershot, Hampshire, have joined 40 soldiers already in the west African country. Meanwhile, a military ship, RFA Argus, which has a fully equipped hospital on board, was due to arrive at Sierra Leone by the end of the month. ■ Copies of the College of Emergency Medicine guidance are available at tinyurl.com/oqcwcjt See also opinion, page 15
Royal Free Hospital senior matron Breda Athan demonstrates the use of equipment to protect staff from Ebola
November 2014 | Volume 22 | Number 7 11
Downloaded from RCNi.com by ${individualUser.displayName} on Nov 26, 2015. For personal use only. No other uses without permission. Copyright © 2015 RCNi Ltd. All rights reserved.
