Sir Bruce Keogh, Jane Cummings and Dr Bob Winter send a personal message to frontline staff about Ebola
Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, National Medical Director; Jane Cummings, Chief Nursing Officer; and Dr Bob Winter, National Clinical Director for Emergency Preparedness have published an important personal message to frontline staff reminding them of the need to be mindful and vigilant of Ebola when patients present to NHS services.
3 comments
All of the NHS staff I have worked alongside with ( I am a Nurse) have always being vigilant when it comes to any suspected infections and have acted promptly in isolating that infection, and in my experience have always communicated any concerns and worked well in partnership alongside infection control teams in preventing any spread of infection. I do not think this will cause any panic and NHS staff will continue to be professional while remaining as vigilant as ever.
This and the RCGP guidance at http://bit.ly/1FQiZ50 dictate that anyone who has recently been to West Africa and displays any of a range of extremely common symptoms is isolated and treated as a high risk patient. West Africa is big. Very big. (Here’s a clue- http://bit.ly/1Bq1Zmp). There is a real risk that the application of this guidance will result in delays to care, inappropriate care, and the ostracisation of people who need treatment for conditions that are not Ebola. There’s more Ebola in the USA than there is Nigeria or Ghana-but we’re not isolating Americans.
I hope that this will be acted upon wisely and without panic, and especially that it won’t lead to people with any of these symptoms coming from West African countries – and especially those countries without ebola (i.e. the majority of West African and indeed African countries) – being ostracised or quarantined as a matter of course.
My greatest concern is that people coming to the UK with malaria will not receive the urgent treatment they need, because of fears abour ebola. It would be tragic if someone were to die because their malaria wasn’t treated urgently.