Shropshire nursing boss: Think where you need to go for treatment during junior doctor strike

Today sees the start of further strike action by junior doctors and our Trust, along with a number of other healthcare organisations, are affected – we will be working hard to deal with the pressure and disruption.

Junior doctors who are members of the British Medical Association (BMA) will be striking from 7am today to 7am on Tuesday, January 9.

The safety of our patients and our colleagues is our top priority and we are working hard to deliver the best care possible during this time. Please continue to attend appointments as planned unless you are contacted to reschedule.

If you have a life-threatening emergency, our emergency departments remain open 24 hours a day, so please continue to come forward as normal.

You can also visit NHS 111 online or call 111 if you need urgent medical help or consider visiting your local Minor Injury Unit in Bridgnorth, Ludlow, Oswestry and Whitchurch. These can provide rapid treatment for injuries and illnesses that don’t require emergency hospital care.

For further information about Think Which Service, which aims to help you to know where to go to get the right advice, support and treatment for your health needs as quickly as possible, visit: http://thinkwhichservice.co.uk/

We have seen a rise in the number of cases of norovirus, which brings on diarrhoea and vomiting, and other respiratory illnesses such as Covid-19, flu and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

If you are visiting our hospitals, could I please remind you to help keep our patients and colleagues safe by: Always cleaning your hands using soap and water or alcohol hand gel before and after contact with a patient; considering wearing a face mask to protect yourself and others when visiting our Emergency Departments (ED); and not visiting if you have flu-like symptoms (cough, fever, cold), if you know you have Covid-19 or flu, or any other infections and diarrhoea and/or vomiting within the last two days.

With the increase in flu and Covid-19 cases, I would ask you to get vaccinated if you are eligible.

I would like to thank my colleagues for all that they do during these challenging times and in particular those who worked over the Christmas and New Year period.

We are always looking at ways we can improve care for our patients and this week, I would like to mention hospital patient diaries which have made a huge difference to the care of our critically ill patients.

The diaries, with a foreword from children’s author Michael Rosen, provide patients with an opportunity to read about the events around their critical illness through the eyes of the multi-disciplinary team and their loved ones.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Katie Craft, a therapy assistant practitioner, and the Critical Care and Intensive Therapy Unit (ITU) teams for developing the ITU Patient Diary, which helps patients fill in the inevitable gaps in their memory.

Children’s author Michael Rosen publicly expressed his support for patient diaries after his own admission to hospital with Covid-19 in 2020 and agreed to write the foreword.

Claire Evans, whose father was in ITU, said that each day in the diary they could read about her dad’s progress, his recovery milestones, funny stories the staff had shared and, if he had a bad day, they wrote about how her dad was feeling.

Sadly, Claire’s father passed away, but for the family, even now, the diaries bring them great comfort.