During the flu outbreak over the winter, a number of benefits emerged as a result of the creation of the new Trust.
A single Infection Prevention and Control Policy was introduced following the launch of MFT, bringing together the strengths of the hospitals’ separate policies. This enabled teams to make good progress in delivering a more consistent standard of patient care during the flu outbreak.
Improved integration between the Infection Prevention and Control teams across hospitals also meant the Virology and Microbiology teams could work with colleagues more easily. This helped with introduction of rapid testing and segregation of patients to reduce the risk of cross-infection.
By learning from previous experience and best practice, the Infection Control, Microbiology and Employee Health and Wellbeing Teams worked hard to make some significant improvements to delivery of the vaccination programme across all sites.
Wythenshawe Hospital immunised over 80% of staff, using roving and pop-up clinics. The team at the Oxford Road campus took learning from this after Christmas and have doubled the number of staff immunised in comparison with last year.
Julie Cawthorne, Assistant Chief Nurse Infection Prevention and Control and Tissue Viability said: “It was our first real challenge in terms of how we could come together and work as one team and that was very successful. Everyone pulled together and put in extra hours to meet the challenge.”
Andrew Turner, Consultant Virologist and Head of Service for Microbiology, said: “It was extraordinary how everyone stepped up. We now have the opportunity to draw on the extensive range of expertise available across our hospitals to improve even further for next winter.”