Hundreds of patients and staff have contracted Covid at our local hospitals

HUNDREDS of people have contracted Covid-19 in Derby and Burton’s hospitals.

They include staff and also patients in hospital beds who caught the virus while being treated for conditions other than coronavirus.

A total of 373 patients and staff contracted coronavirus in local hospitals between October 5 and November 9.

Cathy Winfield, chief nurse at the hospital trust, said: “We have seen a rise in nosocomial (hospitalacquired) infections in our hospitals due to the rising prevalence of Covid-19 both in our hospitals and in the community.

“We have introduced a number of infection prevention and control measures across our hospitals to limit the spread of the virus, including visiting restrictions, social distancing measures, including oneway stairwells and keeping left in our corridors.

“It is really important that everyone adheres to these important measures to help us limit the spread of Covid-19.

“We have provided lateral flow self-testing kits to patient-facing members of staff, which enables them to conduct a test at home twice a week.

“We have introduced RediRooms in our assessment units, which allow us to keep patients who are awaiting the results of a Covid-19 test separate from other patients.

“Patients attending our A&E departments now report to a patient receiving area where they are screened for Covid-19 before being admitted on to one of our pathways, and point-of-care testing has also now been implemented in the departments.

“The wellbeing of our patients and people will always be our number one priority as a trust and all of our staff have been strictly following the latest infection prevention and control regulations to keep our hospitals as safe as possible throughout the pandemic.

“With this in mind, we have recently launched both a staff and patient Covid-19 charter, which is a set of actions and behaviours that we know, if carried out consistently by everyone, in and outside our hospitals, will help us to reduce the transmission of Covid-19.

“The principles of hands, face, space remain so important in reducing the spread of this infection across our hospital sites and to our loved ones at home.

“Everyone has done a phenomenal job of supporting the trust in improving patient ent safety, and we need to continue to build on this.”

Two new charts ts published by the e University Hospitals of Derby and Burton NHS Foundation show the e spread of infecctions contracted in hospital over the e last few months.

A further chart, rt, showing in-hospital infections for patients between October until December 21, splits infections down into categories indicating how likely it is that each case was actually contracted in the hospital.

It chalks most patient cases up to community contracted infections due to the short time between their admission and a positive Covid-19 test – two days or less. However, a significant number of cases are classed as “definite” inhospital infections, amounting to scores of incidents in the two months up to Christmas. These are incidents where a patient has contracted Covid-19 more than two weeks after their admission.

The difference betw between these two cha charts indicates t that the majority of the definite cases of people contracting the virus v in the hospital are staff members, not v vulnerable pat patients. Ho Hospital trust board papers suggest the issue is still present and is rising alongside community infection rates – which are currently at an all-time high.

The new papers say: “Nosocomial (hospital-acquired) outbreaks have increased over recent weeks as the level of infection has risen in the population.”

The hospital trust says in its board papers that there have been 38 Covid19 outbreaks and that a focus “must continue” on “effective personal protective equipment (PPE) use, social distancing, hand hygiene and environmental and equipment cleaning”.

The “red” (Covid-only) medical assessment unit at Royal Derby has been moved to another ward and “RediRooms” – pop-up isolation booths – have been put in place at all those beds.

Royal Derby’s “green” (Covid free) medical assessment unit has also been moved and ho plastic bed space dividers have been installed.

Board papers say the majority of trust outbreaks are linked to Covid19 contracted in the community. This is if a patient tests positive for the virus in two days or less since their admission.

After these, there is a category for “indeterminate” cases where a patient tests positive between three and seven days after admission.

“Probable” cases of infections contracted in the hospital are where patients test positive between eight and 14 days after admission.

Cases contracted after more than 14 days are classed as “definite” and were confirmed to have been caught while in hospital care.

These papers show a graph of daily Covid-19 positive cases among patients “likely to be nosocomial” stretching from October 1 until December 21. It shows that only a small proportion of cases during that time are “definite”, never rising above single digits per day.

Six days during that time saw more than 40 new cases reported, November 2, 5, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Around half of the 40 per day were said to be contracted in the community, followed by around 5-10 per day respectively indeterminate and probable and five or fewer per day were definite cases.

Scores of patients during this near-three month period are confirmed by hospital chiefs to have contracted the virus in the hospital, entering it without the virus.

Scores more are not definite but may well have contracted the virus while in the hospital.

Leadership at NHS England and Improvement and at the Derby and Derbyshire Clinical Commissioning Group have visited Royal Derby Hospital and Queen’s Hospital in Burton and found “good adherence” to infection prevention and control.

At the start of January, Dr Magnus Harrison, the trust’s medical director and deputy chief executive, wrote

to colleagues saying that there is evidence that emergency patients (those in A&E) “are at greatest risk of nosocomial infection during their first few hours with us”.

He said that patients should be staying in the emergency department “for the minimum time required to receive treatment”.

The graph showing in-hospital infections among patients and staff from June to November had remained in the single digits or nonexistent for most of June through to August, with a spike of 25 in the week starting August 17.

After this, the trend returned to normal.

However, in the week of October 5 there were more than 30 cases contracted within the Derby and Burton hospitals.

The following week, October 12, there were nearly 70 further in-hospital cases of the virus.

This was followed by 60 further cases in the following week, more than 70 the week after, 65 the week after and more than 70 in the week to November 9.

The graph only shows data until the week of November 16 and the Local Democracy Reporting Service has requested data from that point up until the current date.