“We learned very quickly to check emails early in the day to see what the latest news was.” Ms Hall says practice staff began to enjoy the challenge of dealing with the pandemic and now work better as a team as a result. The practice receptionists have even set up a system where one person will care for employees’ children leaving the others free to get to work if schools are closed. Ms Hall says: “We’re just more open in communication than before.” One aspect of the pandemic, which worried Ms Hall, was the impact of turning up at patients’ doors in personal protective equipment.
“As we work in London, none of us tend to drive and one taxi driver refused to let me in his car when he saw my gown. People were very fearful.” Ms Hall says the pandemic flu helpline took the pressure off the practice, but staff then found themselves in the tricky position of being asked to produce medical certificates for patients who had received a phone diagnosis and had no contact with the practice. She says: “It would have been useful if after every contact with the swine flu line someone had sent a message to the practice to let us know.”
≥ Key learning point: Having the pandemic as an agenda item in the weekly staff meeting enabled both clinical and non-clinical staff to express their anxieties about swine flu. This was helpful because non-clinical staff were then able to reassure patients and their relatives.
Sonia Hall is a nurse practitioner in East Dulwich, London. Her first experience of swine flu was when pupils at a nearby school became infected at the beginning of the outbreak.
Sonia Hall
Sonia Hall‘s experience reflects the daily pressures faced in the early days of the pandemic. “Now the systems are in place but at the time we trialled every system there was from contacting the local Health Protection Agency to using particular swine flu centres.
She says: “We had swine flu really early on and we probably caught most of the disorganisation. The problem was that every day what we did changed.”
She says: “When we were swabbing, I felt almost as though we were putting a cross on that person’s door. In some areas of terraced housing, you had to put your gown and mask on out in the street.
RCGP Pandemic Report 2010
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