Coronavirus (Covid-19) important information

The latest information and advice for staff (as at 10.03.20, 14:16hrs)…

We are urgently appealing for staff who can help with the coronavirus (COVID-19) response by working alongside Hertfordshire Urgent Care (HUC) call handlers.

From today (Tuesday 10 March), a new 24/7 COVID Management Service (CMS) is being established across the country and is being delivered through out-of-hours providers such as HUC. In west Essex we need additional clinical and non-clinical staff to work alongside the HUC workforce to deliver this service.

CMS call handlers will be involved in taking calls from patients as well as maintaining contact with patients who have been informed they have tested positive for COVID-19 but who are able to stay at home with medical back-up available if they need it.

Call-handlers will be given a script to follow and will receive training from HUC. This is expected to be a half day.

A variety of shifts are available during working hours, evenings and weekends. We are in the process of working out how staff will be compensated for shifts outside of working hours.

Assistance is required in the HUC call centre here at St Margaret’s and also in their call centres elsewhere, such as Welwyn. Which one you choose to go to will depend on where you live.

The CCG is reviewing non-urgent programmes of work that can go on hold while we deal with the essential COVID-19 response and we will update you further about this soon. This will release some workload pressures and allow colleagues to consider this request.

The response to COVID-19 is a priority for the CCG at the moment and we will provide whatever support we can to facilitate staff in taking up this opportunity.

If this is of interest and you would like more information about the role and what this entails, please email westessexccg.comms@nhs.net. By registering your interest, you are not committing yourself in any way at this stage.

Ideally, we would like to hear from as many people as soon as possible.

In addition to this we ask that you take your laptop home each night in case you need to work from home or remotely. We are trying to obtain laptops for people that don’t currently have them.

We will publish more guidance on home/remote working and other business continuity arrangements, including HR guidance, later this week.